Cassell’s Old And New Edinburgh Vol. 1

GREAT HALL, PARLIAMENT* HOUSE.

THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, Restored from Original Deawinos Model-, et« (. \f.er the /'> finMuheJ in 1852 by Jf.ssr

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EDINIURC.!!. TROM MON'S MI

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PROFESSOR JOHN WILSON.

•• CHRISTOPHER* N<*RTH

PROFESSOR JOHli STUART BLACKIE.

( From a rortt.nt by Mr. />. Ma^ at <i, S, L'thkburn Sinet, Edinburgh.)

CASSELL'S

Old and New Edinburgh

Its History, its People, and its Places .

TiHiisfi .iirb tni tttimrtoirs $tmi nutitfi*.

CASS.ELL & COMPANY. Limited
to, NOON, PARIS, NEW YORK S MELBOURNE-
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SAmTFATio

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Old and New Edinburgh.

INTRODUCTION.

" Y?t VERY old city has its origin generally
ALT placed among the fables and

; that envelop the infant Mate of society, and
thus, like that of many other town* and dlka,
the origin of Edinburgh, the «pid of the
ancient kingdom of Scotland, recedea an fta
back into pre-hiatoric times aa ahnoM to chi de
the most pa t i ent investigaticn and of

research; but in these pates we pro pose to
trace its annals, and to describe the varied and
stirring events of which it hasbron the amt,
torn those days when at around ha rite was
a wilderness of wood and wafer, whan that
the hardy warrion of die Oadaal raised asm
rude rampart on the ps edpto w dUh of the
Castle rock, and saw perhaps the riant of |ll
Roman ann% whan, anud the anooa of the wheat
of AA Sc, Jnlw Afriook Infeed M theh( &’
•hove Prihrit h , dawn to sMaiLiit,#'

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

■PK Braid to the sandy shores of the Firth of

TflSabui^ now within a few hours* journey from
frittSdoni was long the capital of a land that was
IMP** a term incognita, not only to England, but

the greater part of Europe, and remained so till
the era of the Scott novels. Spreading over
‘ftHgay swelling hills and deep ravines, that in some
instances are spanned by enormous bridges of stone, j
It exhibits a striking peculiarity and boldness in its
features that render it totally unlike any other city
in the world, unless we admit its supposed resem-
blance to Athens.

Its lofty and commanding site ascends gradually
from the shore of the great estuary, till it termi-
nates in the stupendous rock of the Castle, 500
feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded
on the southward, east, and west, by an amphi-
theatre of beautiful hills, covered either with purple
heath or the richest copse-wood ; while almost from
amid its very streets there starts up the lion-
shaped mountain named Arthur’s Seat, the bare and
rocky cone of which has an altitude of 822 feet.

In Edinburgh every step is historical; the
memories of a remote and romantic past confront
us at every turn and comer, and on every side
arise the shades of the dead. Most marked, in-
deed, is the difference between the old and the
new city — the former being so strikingly picturesque
in its broken masses and the disorder of its archi-
tecture, and the latter so symmetrical and almost
severe in the Grecian and Tuscan beauty of its]
streets and squares ; and this perhaps, combined
with its natural situation quite as much as its
literary character, may have won for it the fanciful
name of “ the Modem Athens.”

On one hand we have, almost unchanged in
general aspect, yet changing in detail at the
ruthless demands of improvement, the Edin- '
burgh of the Middle Ages — “the Queen of the |
North upon her hilly throne”— the city of the
Davids ind of five gallant Jameses — her massive
mansions of stone, weather-beaten, old, dark, and
rime-worn, teeming with historical recollections of
many generations of men ; many painful and many
pitiful memories, some of woe, but more of war
and wanton cruelty ; of fierce combats and feudal
battles ; of rancorous quarrels and foreign invasions;
and of loyal and noble hearts that were wasted and
often broken in their passionate faith to religion
and a regal race that is now do more*.

On the other hand, and all unBke the warrior
4 $kf of the middle ages, beyond the deep ravine
mBeohed by Princes Street— that most beautiful
^Ettopean terraces— and by that noble pinnacled

cross which seems the very shrine of Scott, we
have the modern Edinburgh of the days of peace
and prosperity, with all its spacious squares and
far-stretching streets, adorned by the statues of
those great men who but lately trod them. And
so the Past and the Present stand free to face,
by the valley where of old the waters of the North
Loch lay.

In these pages, accordingly, we intend to sum-
mon back, like the dissolving views in the magic
mirror of Cornelius Agrippa, the Edinburgh of the
past, with all the stirring, brilliant, and terrible
events of which it has been the arena.

The ghosts of kings and queens, of knights and
nobles, shall walk its old streets again, and the
brave, or sad, or startling, story of every time-worn
tenement will be told ; nor shall those buildings that
have passed away be forgotten. Again the beacon
fires shall seem to blaze on the grassy summits of
Soltra and Dunpender, announcing that southern
hosts have crossed the Tweed, and summoning
the sturdy burgesses, from every echoing close and
wynd, in all the array of war, to man their gates
and walls, as all were bound, under pain of death,
to do when the Deacon Convener of the Trades
unfurled “ the Blue Blanket ” of famous memory.

In the ancient High Street we shall meet King
David riding forth with hound and horn to hunt in
his forest of Drumsheugh, as he did on that Rood-
day in harvest when he had the alleged wondrous
escape which led to the founding of Holyrood ; or
we may see him seated at the Castle gate, dispens-
ing justice to his people — especially to the poor
— in that simple fashion which won for him the
proud title of the Scottish Justinian.

In the same street we shall see the mail-clad
Douglases and Hamiltons carrying out their
mortal feud with horse and spear, axe and sword ;
and anon meet him “ who never feared the face of
man,” John Knox, grown old and tottering, white-
bearded and wan, leaning on the arm of sweet
young Margaret Stewart of Ochiltree, as he pro-
ceeds to preach for the last time in St Giles'6;
and we shall also see the sorrowing group that
gathered around his grave in the old churchyard
that lay thereby, and where still that grave is
marked by bronzes let into the pavement

Again the trumpets that breathed war and de-
fiance shall ring at the Market Cross, and we may
hear the mysterious voice that at midnight called
aloud the death-roll of those who jert doomed to*
fall on Flodden field, and the wail of woe that
wentHhrough the startled city when ridings of the
fetal battle came.

We shall 1 ape the countless windows eQho**

THE COWGATE AND

' by seventy-fire gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
were daughters of noblemen, clothed in velvet aftd
silks, with their chexn* of gold and other orna-
ments, and was attended by aoo riding gentle*
men in all journeys ; Odd If it happened to be
dark when she went to Rklinbttlgh, where her
lodgings were at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd*
eighty lighted torches were carried befigg her.”

Here, in later years, was often seen one who
was to write of all these things as no has ever
wrote before or since— a little lame boy, fair-haired
and blue-eyed, named Walter Scotty Ifopfajg to
school with satchel on back, and playing it Qtygftt
be, “ the truant,” with Sfcene^
Graham Dalzell, or others^
who in future days were to
add to the literary glory of
their country and the intel-
lectual supremacy of their
native city.

In Liberton’s Wynd we
shall visit Dowie’s Tavern,
one of the most popular in
its day, the resort of the
Lords of Session on leaving
Court, and, more than all, the
resort of Robert Burns, who
may have indited there some
of his famous letters to
“ Clarinda," at her abode in
General's Entry— Bums, “the
burly ploughman from Ayr-
shire, with swarthy features
and wonderful block eyes,”
who stood reverently bare-
headed by the then unmarked
grave of Fergusson in the
grass - grown Canongate
churchyard.

Again shall be seen the city girt by its lofty
walls and those embattled gates, which were seldom
without a row of human heads on iron spikes — the
grisly relics of those who were too often the victims
her rebel nobles, and thrust— pale, dishevelled, j of dire misrule— with the black kites, then the
in tears, and covered with dust — into the gloomy chief scavengers in the streets, hovering about
stone chambers of the famous Black Turnpike, i them.

while the fierce and coarse revilings of the inflamed j In the steep and quaint West ifow — now nearly
multitude made her woman’s heart seem to die j all removed— dwelt the Wizard, Weir of Kirkton,
within her. who perished at the stake in 1670, together with

Turning into the High School Wynd, under the 1 his sister and the wonderful walking-stick, which
shadow 4f its quaint, abutting, and timber-fronted { was surmounted by* carved head, performed
mansions, we shall meet the Princess — for such she j his errands. His lofty mansion, long the alleged
was— Elizabeth St Clair of Roslin, surrounded abode of spectres, and a source of tenor to the
by the state which Hay records; for he tells us ♦ neighbourhood, was d emoli s h ed only in ft* apffaf

towering mansions again filled with wondering, ex-
ulting, or sorrowing faces, as the wily Earl of Morton
lays his head under the axe of the “ Maiden,”
and the splendid Montrose, as he is dragged to a
felon’s doom, with the George sparkling on his
breast and the Latin history of his battles tied in
mockery to his neck; again, we shall see Jenny
Qeddes hurl her fauldstool at the dean's head as
he gives ‘out the obnoxious liturgy ; and, anon, the
resolute and sombre Covenanters, grasping their
swords in defence of “ an oppressed Kirk and a
broken Covenant."

In the Cowgate— whilom a pleasant country
lane between green hedge-
rows, with its southern slope
covered by yellow com or
grass, among which the cattle
browsed knee deep till the
thrifty monks of Melrose
began to speculate in house-
hold property, in the days
when James I. was king — in
the Cowgate we shall again
*ee the fated Cardinal Beaton
occupying his turreted man-
sion at the corner of the
Blackfriars Wynd, and, anon,

Mary Stuart, nearly a mother,
yet in all her girlish love-
liness, afoot under a silken
canopy, escorted by her
archer guard and torch-
bearers, proceeding to the
ball at Holyrood on that
fatal night in February, when
a flood of red flame was seen
to rise near the Dominican
garden, and a roar as of
thunder shook the city wall,
when the dissolute Darnley was done to death
in the lonely Kirk-of-field.

Again we shall see her, when she is led in from
Carberry Hill, a helpless captive in the midst of

THE “ MAIDEN ’

(From tk t Instrument tn the possession qf the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland!.)

•erred (in. the days of Jameell.)

of i3y&

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

* " ' —

j*tt iMMatent street, long deemed the grand
) Edinburgh, we shall see once more the
fUtM Of gQded sedans, attended by linkmen
1 servants, escorting belles and beaux,
l and patched, proceeding in state to the
‘oM^MomUy Room ; and also the monarchs who
IMCt mitered the city by that remarkable route,
oaotmduig it m succession, surrounded by all their
James VI. and his bride, Anne of Den-

market like a human surge, and strung him up to
g dyer's pole.

In the old city there is not a street wherein
blood has not been shed again and again, in war
and local tumult, for it is the Edinbuigh of those
days when the sword was never in its scabbard >
when to settle a quarrel d la mode i VEdimbourg
was a European proverb; when the death-bed
advice of Bruce was carried out, and truces were

| mark; stately
Charles I.,

| along with his
guard clad
in their vein J
vet doublets

with gilded partisans; Oliver Cromwell, with his
gnm Ironsides; Charles II., before Dunbar was
fought and lost; and, lastly, James VII. of Scot-
land, when Duke of Albany and High Com-
missioner to the Parliament
Down that steep street went a horde of unfor-
fo n a fo s in early rimes to the place of doom; thus,
it had acquired a peculiar character, till the hand
of Improvement changed it; and in later years
it came a victim of another kind, the frantic ,
' ^^NWdwg flptjteous, borne by that infuriated*)
Wm which apwad over all the spacious

made, but seldom peace, with England ; and when
it has been said that many a Scottish mother had
never a son left to lay her head in the grave, for in
foreign war or domestic feud all had gone before
her to the land of the leak But there was much
of the Spartan spirit in the Scottish matron of those
and later times — a feeling that is embodied in the
well-known Jacobite song, in which one of these
mothers is made to say : —

“ I once had sons, I now hae tune,

I bore them, toiling tairlie ;

But 1 would bear them a* again.

To lose them a* for Charlie I"

We are told that when David Home of Wed-
derbtftn, father of the historian of die Douglases,
1574. of consumption, in his fiftieth year,
he was the first of his race who had «gl *

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[UtrodoetNa,

jlitWlrt ilntil till the rest having lost their lives
of their country.

, |f we tuna to Holyrood, what visions and raemo-
||M fttosi it arise of Knox, standing grim and stem
tbeUftfe his queen, in his black Geneva cloak, with

hands planted on the hom handle of his long
MtKtag-c&ne, daringly rebuking her love of music
— unbending, unyielding, and unmelted
hf her exalted rank, her beauty, or her Utter
Seats ; and of that terrible night in the Tower of
‘James- V., when sickly Ruthven, looking pale as
ji spectre under the open visor of his helmet, drew
back with gauntleted hand the ancient arras as
the assassins stole up the secret stair,— and then
Rizzio, dinging wildly to the queen’s skirt, and
dying beneath her eyes of many a mortal wound,
with Damley's dagger planted in his body; of
Charles Edward, in the prime of his youth and
-comeliness, already seeing the crown of the Stuarts
■upon his exiled father’s head, surrounded by exul-
tant Jacobite ladies, with white cockades on their
bosoms, and dancing in the long gallery of the
kings to the sound of the same pipes that blew
the onset at Falkirk and Culloden !

A very few years later, and Boswell, and Dr.
Johnson in his brown suit with steel buttons,
might have been seen coming arm-in-arm from
the White Horse Hostel in Boyd’s Close — the
burly lexicographer, as his obsequious follower
tells us, grumbling and stumbling in the dark, as
they proceeded on their way to the abode of the j
latter in James’s Court ; but his visit to Scotland
-compelled the pedant, who trembled at the Cock
bane ghost and yet laughed at the idea of an
•earthquake in Lisbon, to have, as Macaulay says,
“ a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies, which
seems on that occasion to have crossed his mind
for the first time.”

In yonder house, in Dunbar’s Close, the Iron-
sides of Cromwell had their guard-house ; and on
■the adjacent bartizan, that commanded a view of
all the fields and farms to the north, in the autumn
evenings of 1650, the Protector often sat with
Mathew Thomlinson, Monk, and Ireton, each
•smoking their yards of clay and drinking Scottish

fighting to the death, with his two-handed sword,
against the English invaders. Turn which way we
may in Edinburgh, that stirring past attends us,
and every old stone is a record of the days, the
years, and the people, who have passed away.

In a cellar not far distant the Treaty of Union
was partly signed, in haste and fear and trembling,
while the street without rang with the yells and
opprobrious cries of the infuriated mob ; and after
that event, by the general desertion of the nobility,
came what has been emphatically called the Dark
Age of Edinburgh — that dull and heartless period
when grass was seen to grow around the market-
cross, when a strange and unnatural stillness — the
stillness of village life — seemed to settle over every
one and everything, when the author of “ Douglas ”
was put under ban for daring to write that tragedy,
and when men made their last will and testament
before setting out by the stage for London, and
when such advertisements appeared as that which
we find in the Edinburgh Courant for 7th March,
1761 — “A young lady who is about to set out for
London in a post-chaise will be glad of a com-
panion. Enquire at the publisher of this paper ; ”
— when Edinburgh was so secluded and had such
little intercourse with London, that on one occasion
the mail brought but a single letter (for the British
Linen Company), and the dullness of local life
received a fillip only when Admiral de Fourbin
was off the coast of Fife, or the presence of Thurot
the corsair, or of Paul Jones, brought back some
of the old Scottish spirit of the past.

The stately oaks of the Burghmuir, under which
Guy of Namur’s Flemish lances fled in ruin and
defeat before the Scots of Douglas and Dalhousie,
have long since passed away, and handsome
modern villas cover all the land to the base of
the bordering hills ; but the old battle stone, in
which our kings planted their Standards, and which
marked the Campus Martius of the Scottish hosts,
still lingers there on the south ; and the once
loilely Figgatemuir on the east, where the monks
of Holyrood grazed their flocks and herds, and
where Wallace mustered his warriors prior to the
storming of Dunbar, is now a pleasant little water-

tie, or claret, and expounding, it might be, texts of ing place, which somewhat vainly boasts itself
Scripture, while their batteries at the Lang-gate 44 the Scottish Brighton.”

and Heriot’s Hospital threw shot and shell at the The remarkable appearance and construction of
Castle, then feebly defended by the treacherous old Edinburgh — towering skyward, storey upon
Dundas, from whom the Protector's gold won what, storey, with all its black and bulky chimneys, crow-
lie himself ad m itt e d, steel and shot might never stepped* gables, and outside stairs — arise from the
have won, the fortress never before bemg ao strong circumstance of its having been twice walled, and
'Mjk |qi then, with all its stores and garrison. And the necessity for residing within these barriers, for
.fh thm wystd* to which, in perishing, he gave hi protection in times of foreign or domestic war.
linM^neahaQ see die sturdy craftsman Ha&erston Thus, what Victor Hugo says of the Pari* nfi^hihp

Introduction.]

THE NEW TOWN.

Augustus seems peculiarly applicable to the Edin- We propose to trace the of its gl fffiottl

burgh of James V., and still more to that of University, from the infant establishment, founded
James II. by the legacy of Robert Bishop of Orkney, in

“ He imprisoned Paris in a circular chain of 1581, and which was grafted on the anfiUvt
great towers, high and solid/' says the author of in the Kirk-of- Field, and the power of which, an
“ Notre Dame ; " “ for more than a century after years went on, spread fast wherever law, theology,
this the houses went on pressing upon each other, medicine, and art, were known. The youngest
accumulating and rising higher and higher. They and yet the noblest of all Scottish universities,
got ‘deeper and deeper j they piled storeys on enrolling yearly the greatest number of students, it
storeys ; they mounted one upon another ; they has been the alma mater of many *m&n, who,
shot up monstrously tall, for they had not room to in every department of learning and literature*
grow breadthwise ; each sought to raise its head have proved themselves second to none ; and
above its neighbour to have a little air ; every open from the early days when Rollock taught, to those
space became filled up, and disappeared. The when it rose into repute as a great school of
houses at length leaped over the wall of Philip medicine under the three M unroes, who held with
Augustus, and scattered themselves joyously over honour the chair of anatomy for 150 years, and
the plain. Then they did what they liked, and when, in other branches of knowledge, its fame
cut themselves gardens out of the fields." grew under Maclaurin, Black, Ferguson, Stewart,

And of the old walled city the well-known lines Hamilton, Forbes, Syme, and Brewster, we shall
of Scott

New

sense. It tells peculiarly in all its phases of served,” at the Greenside-well beneath the Calton
modem splendour, wealth, luxury, and all the arts Hill, and the theatre at the Watergate, when “hi*
of peace, while “ in no other city,” it has been Majesty’s servants from London " were patronised
said, “ will you find so general an appreciation of by the Duke of Albany and York, then resident
books, arts, music, and objects of antiquarian in Holyrood, down .to the larger establishments in
interest. It is peculiarly free from the taint of the the Canongate, under the litigious Tony Aston,
ledger and counting-house. It is a Weimar with- and those of later years, which saw the perform-
out a Goethe — Boston without its twang.” ances of Kean, Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, and

This is the Edinburgh through the noble streets the production of the Waverley dramas, under the
of which Scott limped in his old age, white-haired auspices of Terry, who, as Scott said, laughingly*
and slow, leaning often on the arm of Lockhart had “ terrified *’ his romances into plays,
or the grey-plaided Ettrick Shepherd ; the Edin- Arthur’s Seat and the stupendous craigs, the
burgh where the erect and stalwart form of the name of which is so absurdly and grotesquely
athletic 11 Christopher North,” with his long locks ! corrupted into 41 Salisbury,” alone are unchanged
of grizzled yellow — his “tawny mane,” as he since those pre-historic days, when, towering amid
called them— floating on the breeze, his keen blue the wilderness, they overlooked the vast forest of
eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy, his left hand oaks that stretched from the pastoral hills of Braid
planted behind his back, and his white neck- to the sea — the wood of Drumsheugh, wherein
cloth oft awry, strode daily from Gloucester Place roamed the snow-white Caledonian bull ; those
to the University, or to 14 Ebony’s,” to meet Jeffrey, ferocious Caledonian boars, which, as Martial tells
Rutherford, Cockbum, Delta, Aytoun, Edward us, were used to heighten the torments of unhappy
Forbes, and Carlyle ; the Edinburgh where Simpson, sufferers on the cross ; the elk, the stag, and the
the good, the wise, and the gentle, made his dis- wolf ; and amid which rose the long ridgy •lope—
coveiy concerning chloroform, and made his mark, the Edin — that formed the site of the future eld
too, as u the grand old Scottish doctor,” whose city, terminating m the abrupt bluff of the Cast le
house in Queen Street was a focus for SB the rock. There, too* rose the bare round Siam of
learned and aD the literati of Europe and America ftbe Calton, the abode of the fox sod hm, and
— thgJMinburgh of the Georgian and Victorian age. where the bustard had its dcstaiUMi the f Ml

are most apposite : — trace its history down to the present day, when

.... . , , . . . . . its privileges and efficiency were so signally aug-

>uch dusky grandeur clothed the height, . . . ^ , TT ; . * „ - ^

Vhere the huge castle holds its state, menttd b >' the Scottlsh University Act of 1858.

And all th« steep slope down, Nor shall we omit to trace the origin and de-

Whose ndgy back heaves to the sky, velopment of the stage in Edinburgh, from the

■iled deep and massy, close and high, time when t]ie , masks or p i ays of Sir l} av i d Li„ d .

Mine own romantic town ! r . u . r . . ..

say of the Mount were performed in the open

Edinburgh appeals to us in a different air in the days of James V., “when weather

Such dusky grandeur clothed the height,
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all thv steep slope down,

Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,
Mine own romantic town ! ”

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

rfutanJLa^M

Ml IW f and there were sedgy pools and lonely displayed ; stout and true Covenanters borne forth
UMM wt^ere the heron fished and waded, with the | in groups to die at the gallows or in the Grey-
' 0 M sheet of die South friars churchyard, where

im% where now the Mea-
4am lie; and there, too,

WOB Duddingston, but in
ebe twice the extent we
And it now.

Of all these hills have
looked on since the Roman
altars- of Jove smoked at
Inveresk and Cramond, of
all the grim old fortress on
its rock and St. Giles’s
Gothic and imperial crown
have seen, we shall en-
deavour to lay the won-
drous story before our
readers.

The generations of men
are like the waves of the
sea ; we know not whence
they come or whither they common seal of Edinburgh.* (After Henry Laing .) Houses and many of the
go; but generation after quaint old citizens who

friars churchyard, where
stands the tomb which
tells us how 18,000 of them
perished as “noble mar-
tyrs for Jesus Christ;”
cavaliers in all their
bravery and pride, and in
the days of their suffering
and downfall ; the brawling
gallants of a century later,
who wore lace ruffles and
rapiers, and “ paraded ”
their opponents on the
smallest provocation in the
Duke’s Walk behind Holy-
rood; the grave senators
and jovial lawyers of the
last century, who held their
“high jinks” in dingy
taverns near the Parliament
Houses and many of the
quaint old citizens who

generation of citizens shall pass before us like I figure in the valuable repertory of Kay : — all shall
Banquo’s spectral line of kings ; the men of | pass in review before us, and we shall touch on
T\i*s~m T?iA.u r ~ ♦ko.v them one and all, as we

think of them, tenderly
and kindly, as of those
who are long since dead
and gone — gone to then-
solemn account at the foot
of the Great White Throne.
In picturesque beauty the
capital of Scotland is se-
cond to none. “ What the
tour of Europe was ne-
cessary to see, I find con-
gregated in this one city,”
said Sir David Wilkie.
“Here alike are the beau-
ties of Prague and of Salz-
burg, the romantic sites of
Orvieto and Tivoli, and
all the magnificence of the

Bays of Naples and Genoa.

son, “the king of the sea;” counter seal of the above t {After Hemy Le **.) Here, indeed, to the pain-

Dinas-Eiddyn, with their
glittering torques, armlets,
and floating hair ; the
hoodedScoto-Saxons of Lo-
thian and the Merse, with
Tinged bymes and long
battle-axes; the steel-dad
knights of the Bruces an£
the Jameses; merchants
and burghers in broad-
cloth ; monks, abbots, and
nuns; Templars on their"
trial at Holyrood for sor-
cery and blasphemy ;
Knights - hospitallers and
hermits of St Anthony;
the old fighting merchant
mariners of Leith, such as
the Woods, the Bartons,
and Sir Alexander Mathie-
son,“thekingof the sea;”
witches and wizards perish-

ter’s fancy may be found

ing in the flames at the Grassmarket or the Gallow- realised the Roman Capitol and the Grecian
lee ; the craftsmen in aims, with their Blue Banner Acropolis.”

* ' " t AfaHhwphSnwof pottAk

*ta»4wtat «f omjmmwml fymH cxfc t rip h-t w— id. poarifcal wmtamtt « bat wfahaot a mkni 1m hk fight hud ka fcoUt
la mck «T tfca tqrmn Inthn fcaad a soldier, a coder, aad ia kb left a book. At rack rid* h a ikrt «aff «aod>
IMlW^«#«MI«t«lMWWSWtaB««lS««ar ik* M^aad atom tka aadai ta a S i r d» S t. BnmAm of »»® mmmrn tka Imr wt
MtltkMiiMKaid i aga IkthHiriH fc <l 8wa >0 sad Adas of ikm fidlsa lb kaAi|h M loDn ana oms
mmm* mm m wmmmm** Ns anmO t)h*ms PaawMAarftaA

JOHNTKAY

JOHN KAY (1786) i*ai umiU of the Portrait etched by himself)

CHAPTER I.

PREHISTORIC EDINBURGH.

The Site before the Houses—' Trace* of Early Inhabitants— The Caledonian Tribes— Agncola s Invasion— Subjection of the Scottish I mtlsnds
The Roman Way — Edinburgh never occupied permanently— Various Roman Remains Urns Coins Busts ; Swords, Spout, and Other
Weapons — \naent Coffins— The Camus, or Lath-stone— Origin of the name ‘ Edinburgh — Dinas- Eiddyn— The Battle of GttlMlIk

On the arrival of Agricola’s Roman army in the and battle-stones scattered throughout the country
Lothians, about the year a.d. 8o, the Ottadeni ap- amply attests , and it is not improbable that ft#
pear, according to Chalmers, to have occupied site of Dalkeith (Dalcath, or the field of battle) may
the whole extent of coast from the Tyne to the have seen some struggle with Agricola's Roman,
Firth of Forth, including, that is, a part of Nor- Batavian, and Tungrian cohorts,
thumberland and Roxburghshire, the whole of the It was not until the year 83 that Agricoia re-
Merse, and Haddingtonshire. The Gadem, whose solved to penetrate into the districts beyond* the
territory lay in the interior country, parallel and Forth, as he dreaded a more united resistance
contiguous to that of the Ottadeni, had all the land from the Caledonian tribes, who had hitherto been
from the Tyne to the south of the Forth ; they hostile to each other. Guided by the information
held, namely, the western parts of Northumberland, of naval officers who had surveyed/ the coast, his
Roxburghshire, the whole of Falkirk, Tweeddale, army crossed the Forth at Inchgafvie, and landed
and much of the Lothians. at the north ferry, from whence lie proceeded to

These were two of the twenty-one Caledonian fight hit way towards the Grampians ; but fr was
tribes who were connected by such slight ties as not until the year 14? that die Scottish Lowlands
scarcely to enjoy a social state, and who then were entirely subjected to Roman sway, by LpBjtti
occupied the whole of Northern Britain. Urbicus, whose legjons have left 00 many ipqgh-

That these Ottadeni and Gadem wece*wdl bewfi votive altars and g r a ven memorial s of Jte
mined, and wan te d bravely, the nnmber of camps tauws Vienna, with d e e pti o nel d e flhfr t hm*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Prahinoric Edlnbuifh.

Cjesari. Tito. CElio. Hadriano.
Aug. Pio. Patri. Patrice.
the Roman military causeway — of

The portions of it discovered in 1832 included a
branch extending a considerable way eastward
along the north back of the Canongate, towards the

_ fragments still remain— from Brittano- well-known Roman road at Portobello, popularly
to Alterva (U from Dunbar to Cramond) known as “ The Fishwives 1 Causeway.” “ Here,”

dose to it, the Castle rock never appears
^have become a Roman station ; and it is suf-
nently curious that the military engineers of the
invaders should have neglected such a strong and
-natural fortification as that steep and insulated
mass, situated as it was in Valentia, one of their
six provinces in Britain.

Many relics of the Romans have been turned
up from time to time upon the site of Edinburgh,
but not the slightest trace has been found to indicate
that it was ever occupied by them as a dwelling-
place or city. Yet, Ptolemy, in his “ Geography,”
speaks of the place as the Castrum alatum, “a
winged camp, or a height, flanked on each side
by successive heights, girded with intermediate
valleys.” Hence, the site may have been a native
fort or hill camp of the Ottadeni.

When cutting a new road over the Calton Hill,
in 1817, a Roman urn was found entire; another
(supposed to be Roman), eleven and a half inches
in height, was found when digging the foundation

of the north pier of
the Dean Bridge,
that spans a deep
ravine, through
which the Water of
Leith finds its way
to the neighbouring
port. In 1782 a
coin of the Emperor
•Vespasian was found
in a garden of the
Pleasance, and is
now in the Museum
of Antiquities ; and
roman urn found at thr dean, when excavating in

{From ikt Antiquarian Muunm.) St. Ninian’8 ROW, On

the western side of
the Calton, in 1815, there was found a quantity of
fine red Samian ware, of the usual embossed cha-
racter. In 1833, when enlarging the drain by which
the old bed of the North Loch was kept dry,
almost at the base of the Castle rock, portions of
an ancient Roman causeway were discovered, four
feet belbw the modem road. Another portion of

says Dr. Wilson, “ we recover the traces of the
Roman way in its course from Eildon to Cramond
and Kinneil, with a diverging road to the important
town and harbour at Inveresk, showing beyond
doubt that Edinburgh had formed a link between
these several Roman sites.”

Within a few yards of the point where this road
crossed the brow of the city ridge were built into
the wall of a house, nearly opposite to that of
John Knox, two beautifully sculptured heads of
the Emperor Septimius Severas and his wife Jillia.
These busts, which Maitland, in his time (1750),
says were brought from an adjacent building, Wilson
the antiquary conjectures were more probably
found when excavating a foundation; but under
the causeway of High Street, in 1850, two silver
denarii of the same emperor were found in ex-
cellent preservation.

These busts were doubtless* some relic of the
visit paid to the colony by Septimius Severus, for
Alexander Gordon, in his “ Itinerarium Septen-
trionale,” published in 1726, says: — “About this
time it would appear that Julia, the wife of Severus,
and the greatest part of the imperial family, were
in the country of Caledonia; for Xephilin, from
Dio, mentions a very remarkable occurrence which
there happened to the Empress Julia and the wife
of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian.”

Passing, however, from the Roman period, many
distant traces have been found of people who-
dwelt on, or near, the site of Edinburgh, in what
may be called, if the term be allowable, the pre-
historic period.

In constructing the new road to Leith, leading
from the centre of Bellevue Crescent, in 1823,
several stone cists, of circumscribed form, wherein
the bodies had been bent double, were found;
and these being disposed nearly due east and west,
were assumed, but without evidence, to have been
the remains of Christians. In 1822 another was-
found in the Royal Circus, buried north and south ;
the skeleton crumbled into dust on being exposed,
all save- the teeth.

During the following year, 1823, several rude

stone coffins were discovered when digging the
way, competed, of irregular rounded J foundations of a house in S*xe Coburg Place, near
dosefty rammed together on a bed of St Bernard’s Chapd. One of diem contained two
frfrcedjpi), coloured with fragments of bride, was urns^of baked day, from which circumstance it was
beneath the foundsetio as of the Trinity supposed that this was a place of interment, at the
when It was demolished m 1845. period when the Romans had penetated thus fiur

Prahistoric Edinburgh.]

CELTIC REMAINS.

norths and theOttadeni, in imitation of their practice,
had adopted the cremation of their dead, while
adhering to their ancient form of sepulchre. Similar
evidences of the occupation of the locality by
an ancient people have been found all round
Edinburgh.

The skeleton of a woman buried in the same
fashion, with head and feet together, was found on
the eastern slope of Arthur’s Seat in 1858, and
within the cist lay the lid of a stone quem or
hand-mill. Of the same early period was, perhaps,
the cist which was found on the coast of the Firth,
when the Edinburgh and Granton Railway was
made, the skeleton in which had on it ornaments
formed of the common cockle-shell

Some graves of a later and more civilised period
were found in 1850, when the immense reservoir
was excavated on the Castle Hill, on the highest
ground, and in the very heart of the ancient city.
On the removal of some buildings of the seven-
teenth century, and after uprooting some portions
of the massive wall of 1450, lower down, at a
depth of twenty-five feet, and entirely below the
foundation of the latter, “the excavators came
upon a bed of clay, and beneath this was a thick
layer of moss, or decayed animal and vegetable
matter, in which was found a coin of the Emperor
Constantine, thus suggesting a date approximating
to the beginning of the fourth century. Imme-
diately under this were two coffins, each formed of
a solid trunk of oak, measuring about six feet in
length. They were rough, and unshapen exter-
nally, as when hewn down in their native forest,
and appeared to have been split open , but within
they were hollowed out with considerable care, a
circular space being formed for the head, and,
indeed, the interior of both had considerable
resemblance to what is usually seen in the stone
coffins of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
They lay nearly due east and west, with their
heads to the west One of them contained a male
and the other a female skeleton, unaccompanied
by any weapons or other relics ; but between the two
coffins the skull and antlers of a gigantic deer were
found, and alongside of them a portion of another
horn, artificially cut, forming, most probably, the
head of the spear with which the old hunter armed
himself for the chase. The discovery of such
primitive relics in the very heart of a busy popu-
lation, and the theatre of not a few memorable
hktotical events, is even more calculated to
awaken our interest, by the striking contzmt which
it presents, than when found beneath the low,
sepulchral mound# or exposed by the opcrattoip
of the agriculturist ,An unsuccemfxtl atte mp t was

w

made to remove one of the 00/m Epgn
skulls were so much decayed that they w*tag|
pieces on being lifted; but the frnll imiltiatnigF
the deer found alongside of tblfe axe
posited in the Scottish Museum. 11 *

Many relics and weapons of tbO'bionxe f f f
have been discovered in and around thorite e#
Edinburgh. Some of the most perfect and poBriidl
of these weapons are now in the Museum at
Abbotsford; and about fifty pfeces of swords,
spear-heads, and other fragments of weapons, all
more or less affected by fire, are in the collection
of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The
swords are of the leaf-shaped form, with perforated
handles, to which bone or wood has been attached,
and many of the large spear-heads are pierced with
a variety of ornamental designs.

During the construction, in 1846, of that pare
of the Queen’s Drive which lies directly above
the loch, on the southern slope of Arthur’s Seat,
two of the most beautiful and perfect leaf-shaded
swords ever found in Scotland were discovered in
a bed of charcoal, and are now in the Scottish
Antiquarian Museum. The blade of the largest
measures 26J inches in length, and if inches at
the broadest part Not far from the same place a
cup or lamp of clay and celts of bronze were also
discovered, and, at “ Samson’s Ribs," a cinerary urn.

On the green slopes of the same hill may be
seen still the traces of ancient civilisation, in some

now-forgotten mode of cultivating the soil— forgot-
ten unless we recall the terraces of the Rhine, or the
ancient parallels of the Peruvians in the Cordilleras
of the Andes. “ On the summer evenings, while
the long shadows still linger on the eastern slope of
Arthur’s Seat, it is seen to rise from the margin of
Duddingston Loch to the higher valley in a puccet-
sion of terrace-steps, in some cases with indications
of retaining walls still discoverable. It is on the
slope thus furrowed with the traces of A long ex-
tinct system of agriculture that the bronze swords
and celts, and the ancient pottery already described#
have been dug up ; while wrought deers' horns,
weapons, and masses of melted bronze, were
dredged from the neighbouring loch in such quan-
tities as to suggest that at some remote age weapons
of the Scottish bronze period bad been extensively
manufactured on the margin. Following up ftp
connection between such evidences of ancient git
and agriculture, Mr. Chambers suggests the proba-
bility that the daises of Arthur's Seat and fte
bronze weapons dug up there or dredged front fro
loch are all works of the same iofstttas mfr

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

(Mbiitorie EdMwgh.

tta* we see in the terraced slopes
t mode of agriculture pertaining to
all written history, when iron had not
toged to wound the virgin soil”*

In those days the Leith mast have been a broader
and a deeper river than now, otherwise the term
“ Inverleith,” as its mouth, had never been given to
the land in the immediate vicinity of Stockbridge.

THE ROMAN ROAD, NEAR PORI OBKLLO— THE “ MSHWlVEb’ CAUSEWAY.”
{btom a Drawing by Waller H I’aton, A’ S.A )

Other relics of the unwritten ages exist near
Edinburgh in the shape of battle-stones ; but many
have been removed In the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the city, close to the huge monolith
named the Camus Stone, were two very large
conical cairns, named Cat (or Cath ) Stones, until
demolished by irreverent utilitarians, who had
found covetable materials in the rude memorial
stones.

Underneath these cairns were cists containing
human skeletons and various weapons of bronze
and iron. Two of the latter material, spear-heads,
are still preserved* at Morton Hall. Within the
grounds of that mansion, about half a mile distant
from where the cairns stood, .there still stands an
ancient monolith, and two larger masses that are in
its vicinity are not improbably the relics of a ruined
cromlech. “ Here, perchance, has been the battle-
ground of ancient chiefs, contending, it may be,
with soqie fierce invader, whose intruded arts
startle us with evidences of an antiquity which
seems primeval. The locality is peculiarly suited
to the purpose. It is within a few miles of the
sea, and enclosed in an amphitheatre of hills ; it is
the highest ground in the immediate neighbour-
hood, and the very spot on which the warriors of
a retreating host might be expected to make a
stand ere they finally betook themselves to the
adjacent fastnesses of the Pentland Hills/

- — -■■■ t

«rell*«rp4to ***** ptculkr ctoactcr-

mtL It Jit frmw awtrig, kmxktg tot dtvtetof i tarWted bttd, with
dotowaiSMiimti Ba> Uaacwm ditto Htonw
|g mm 4i feg» km wpftoiA to bt a ttfaaaa or ttigtoU rignt

The origin of the name “ Edinburgh” has proved
the subject of much discussion. The prenomen
is a very common one in Scotland, and is always
descriptive of the same kind of site— a slope
Near Lochearnhead is the shoulder of a hill called
Edin- a-chip, “the slope of the repulse,” having
reference to some encounter with the Romans ; and
Edtn- ample is said to mean “the slope of the
retreat." There are upwards of twenty places
having the same descriptive prefix ; and besides the
instances just noted, the following examples may
also be cited Edincoillie, a “ slope in the wood/
in Morayshire ; Fdmmore and Edinbeg, in Bute;
Edmdonach, in Argyllshire; and Edinglassie, in
Aberdeenshire. Nearly every historian of Edin-
burgh has had a theory on the subject. Amot
suggests that the name is derived from Dunedin*
“ the face of a hill ; ” but this would rather signify
the fort of Edin; and that name it bears in
the register of the Priory of St Andrews, in 1107.
Others are fond of asserting that the name was
given to the town or castle by Edwin, a Saxon
1 pnnee of the seventh century, who “repaired
it consequently it must have had some name
| before his time, and the present form may be a
species of corruption of it, like that of Drybuigh,
from Darrach-bruach , “the bank of the grove
of oaks."

Another theory, one greatly favoured by Sir
Walter Scott, is that it waS|the Dinas-Eiddyn (the
slaughter of whose people in to sixth century is
lamented by Aneurin, a bard of to Ottadeni); a
place, however, which Chalmers supposes to be
elsewhere. The subject is a carious one, and

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

JFktMibMfe XdUbta^b*

m

worth consideration ; but, interesting as it is, it
<PW» * t detain us long here,

VllMhe M Myrvyian, or Cambrian Archaeology," a
t$gfae with ancient lore, mention is made of
or the fort of £din, wherein dwelt
a chief Mynydoc, leader of the Celtic

Briton* in the fatal battle with the Saxons under
Ida, the flame-bearer, at Catraeth, in Lothian, where
the flower of the Ottadeni fell, in 510 ; and this is
believed to be the burgh subsequently said to be
named after Edwin.

In the list of those who went to the battle of
Catraeth there is record of 300 warriors arrayed in
fine armour, three loricated bands (/.<?., plated for
defence), with their commanders, wearing torques
of gold, “ three adventurous knights,” with 300 of
equal quality, rushing forth from the summits of
the mighty Caer-Eiddyn, to join their brother
chiefs of the Ottadeni and Gadeni.

In the “ British Triads " both Caer-Eiddyn
(which some have supposed to be Carriden), and
also Dinas-Eiddyn, the city of Eiddyn, are re-
peatedly named. But whether this be the city of
Edinburgh it is exceedingly difficult to say; for,
after all, the alleged Saxon denominative from
Edwin is merely conjectural, and unauthenticated
by remote facts.

From Sharon Turner’s “ Vindication of Ancient
British Poems," we learn that Aneurin, whose work
contains 920 lines, was taken prisoner at the battle
of Catraeth,* and was afterwards treacherously slain
by one named Eiddyn ; another account says he
died an exile among the Silures in 570, and that the
battle was lost because the Ottadeni “ had drunk
of their mead too profusely."

The memory of Mynydoc Eiddyn is preserved
in a beautiful Welsh poem entitled “ The Drinking

Horn," by Owain, Prince of Powis. The poem
is full of energy.

11 When the mighty bards of yore
Awoke the tales of ancient lore,

What time resplendent to behold, ,

Flashed the bright mead in vase of gold l
The royal minstrel proudly sung
Of Cambria’s chiefs when time was younc
How, with the drink of heroes flushed,

Brave Catraeth's lord to battle rushed.

The lion leader of the strong,

And marshal of Galwyiada’s throng 1
The sun that rose o’er Iton’s bay
Ne’er closed on such disastrous day ;

There fell Mynydoc, mighty lord,

Beneath stem Osway’s baneful sword ;

Yet shall thy praise, thy deathless name,

Be woke on harps of bardic fame,

Sung by the Cymri’s tuneful train,

Aneurin of celestial strain.”

Daniel Wilson, one of the ablest writers on Scottish
antiquities, says that he thinks it useless “to follow
the fanciful disquisitions of zealous antiquarians
respecting the origin and etymology of Edinburgh ;
it has successively been derived, both in origin and
in name, from Saxon, Piet, and Gael, and in each
case with sufficient ingenuity to leave the subject
more involved than at first." But while on this
subject, it should be borne in mind that the un-
fortunate destruction of the national records by the
invaders, Edward I. and Oliver Cromwell, leaves
the Scottish historian dependent for much of his
material on tradition, or information that can only
be obtained with infinite labour; though it may
no doubt be taken for granted that even if these
archives had been preserved in their entirety they
could scarcely have thrown much, if any, light upon
the quastio vexata of the origin of the name of
Edinburgh.

CHAPTER II.

THE CASTLE OF EDINBURGH.

Qf h» OHginwd remoter History— The Legends
Ring Grime— The Story of Grime and Bertha of

Gardena, afterwards the North Loch.

Mooena— Defeat of the Sana* by Ring Fridei-King Edwin-

- - Badlieo-The Stasring-poiat of authentic Edinburgh History— St. Maigaret-Her Piety
Death— Restoration of her Oratory— Her Burial— Donald Bant King David I.— The Royal

Arm th* departure of the Romans the inhabitants 1
Of Northern Britain bore the designation of Fieri,
or HotM and historians ere now agreed that these
wor tHwt a pew mat, km fiplylbe ancient Gale-
a new nagi&Y

.tpO «rt*t remote date arelgned far the origin

of the -Castle of Edinburgh is that astounding
announcement made in Stew's “Summarie of
Englyshe Chronicles,” in which be tells us that
“ Ebiunke, the eonne of Metnpridus, was made
ruler of Britayne; he had, as tesrifieth Pottcranka,
GairiHde, and others, tweotjMxre wyres, of whom
he wcey re d twenty sonnet end thirty daughters,
rilitb-he sent into Ilafye, there to.be surfed to

TI»OMtl«)

THE MAIDENS’ CASTLE.?

the blood of the Trojans. In Albanye (now called
Scotland) he edified the Castell of Alclude, which
is Dumbreyton ; he made the Castell of Maydens,
now called Edinburgh ; he also made the Castell
of Banbuigh, in the twenty-third year of his reigp.”
All these events occurred, according to Stow, in
the year 989 before Christ ; and the information is
quite as veracious as much else that has been
written concerning the remote history of Scotland.

From sources that can scarcely be doubted, a
fortress of some kind upon the rock would seem to
have been occupied by the Piets, from whom it
was captured in 452 by the Saxons of Northum-
bria under Octa and Ebusa; and from that time
down to the reign of Malcolm II. its history
exhibits but a constant struggle for its possession
between them and the Piets, each being victorious
in turn; and Edwin, one of these Northumbrian
invaders, is said to have rebuilt it in 626. Terri-
tories seemed so easily overrun in those times, that
the Northumbrians and Scots, in the year 368, under j
the reign of Valentinian I., penetrated as far as
London, but were repulsed by Theodosius, father
of the Emperor of the same name. This is the
Edwin whose pagan high-priest Coifi was converted
to Christianity by Paulinus, in 627, and who, ac-
cording to Bede, destroyed the heathen temples
and altars. A curious and very old tradition still
exists in Midlothian, that the stones used in the
construction of the castle were taken from a quarry
near Craigmillar, the Craig-moilard of antiquity.

Camden says, “The Britons called it Caste/
Mynedh Agnedh — the maidens’ or virgins’ castle —
because certain young maidens of the royal blood
were kept there in old times.” The source of this
oft-repeated story has probably been the assertion
of Conchubhranus, that an Irish saint, or recluse,
named Monena, late in the fifth century founded
seven churches in Scotland, on the heights of
Dun Edin, Dumbarton, and elsewhere. This may |
have been the St Monena of Sliabh-Cuillin, who
died in 518. The site of her edifice is supposed
to be that now occupied by the present chapel
of St Margaret — the most ancient piece of ma-
sonry in the Scottish capital ; and it is a curious
circumstance, with special reference to the fable
of the Pictish princesses, that dose by it (as re-
corded in the Caledonian Mercury of 26th Sep*
t ember, 1853), when some excavations were made,
a number of human bones, apparently all of
females, were found, together with the remains of
teveral coffins.

“ Castrum PueUanm? says Chalmers “ was # the
leaned and diplomatic name of die placet flf
eppeass from existing f chartas and documents;

vulgar appeUatkm f whik Bod*^
asserts that its ancient names ofthe MMesw
Valley and Maiden Castle were borrowed from
ancient French romances, “dgyilsd within
space of three hundred yean” from Ids time.

The Castle was the nucleus, so fo speak, srsHwkf
which the city grew, a fact that explains thenrfpi*
towers in the arms of the latter — three great
towers connected by a curtain wall — being the
form it presented prior to the ejection of the
Half-Moon Battery, in Queen Mary's time.

Edwin, the most powerful of the petty kings of
Northumberland, largely extended the Saxon con-
quest s in the Scottish border counties; and Ms
possessions reached ultimately from thfc waters of
Abios to those of Bodona — i.e,, from Humber to
Forth ; but Egfrid, one of his successors, lost these
territories, together with his life, in battle with the
Pictish King Bridei, or Brude, who totally defeated
him at Dun-nechtan, with terrible slaughter. This
was a fatal blow to the Northumbrian monarch^,
which never regained its previous ascendency, and
was henceforth confined the countiy south of
Tweed. Lodonia (a Teutonic name signifying
marshes or borders) became finally a part of the
Pictish dominions, Dunedin being its stronghold, and
both the Dalriadic Scots and Strathclyde Britons
were thus freed from the inroads of the Saxons.

This battle was fought in the year 6A5, the
epoch of the bishopric of Lindisfiune, and as the
Church of St. Giles was a chaplaimy of that
ancient see, we may infer that some kind of town —
of huts, doubtless— had begun to cluster round the
church, which was a wooden edifice of a primitive
kind, for as the world was expected to end in the
year 1000, sacred edifices of stone were generally
deemed unnecessary. From the time of the
Saxon expulsion to the days of Malcolm II.— -a
period of nearly four hundred years— everything
connected with the castle and town of Edinburgh
is steeped in obscurity or dim tradition.

According to a curious old tradition, preserved
in the statistical account of the parish of Tweed-
muir, the wife of Grime, the usurper, had her
residence in the Castle while he was absent
fighting against the invading Danes. He is said
to have granted, by charter, nil hunting seat at
Polmood, in that parish, to one of his a tten d ant s
named Hunter, whose race were to pos se * it whftf
wood grew and water nut But, as Hpgg say*
in his “Winter Evening Tales,” “These is oner
rcmaikahlc circumstance connected with the place
that baa rendered it nnfomou* of late pen* and.
■■yum |q justify an ancient inddiis flwfe thb
banters at Msm d

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

(IhOMk

kk his queen in the then solitary Castle, probably a remnant of Edwin's departed power;
^ according to Buchanan, began his and from this period begins the authentic his-
I the year 996) often pursued the pleasures tory of Edinburgh and its castle, as from that
'fcrr * among the wilds of Polmood, in the time it continued to be almost permanently the
- li— 1» — J Via caw residence of die early and later

ilSHMeikdiood of which be saw
I’SSKofgreatbeauty, named
of Badlieu, whose
soon proved more at-
tractive than the pursuit of the
, boar or Caledonian bull,
and he became her captive —
her lover. In process of time
a son was the result of their
intimacy, and the forgotten
queen, though residing quietly
in solitude at Edinburgh, re-
solved on deadly vengeance.

Selecting a time when Grime
was again fighting the Danes,
she dispatched to Badlieu cer-
tain assassins, who murdered

THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH.
Front Edmondson's “ Heraldry

monaxchs and their officers of
state.

The history of Edinburgh
Castle is much associated with
the memory of St Margaret,
the pious and beautiful queen
of Malcolm III. (the successor
of Macbeth) who often resided
in it, and ultimately died in a
tower on the west side of the
rock, which bore her name till
it was demolished in the siege
of 1573. In recording her de-
mise, ancient chroniclers have
not failed to add much that
is legendary to the truth, and

Bertha, her aged father, and infant son, and, bury- this invests the solemn event with a peculiar charm,
ing them in one grave, heaped above it a rough The grand-niece of Edward the Confessor, she
tumulus, which still marks the spot. had fled from her own country on the usurpation of

Full of remorse and fear, the queen died before Harold, but was wrecked on the Forth, at the place
the return of Gnme, who, after defeating the still called Queensferry. She and her retinue
Danes, and destroying their galleys, hastened to were hospitably entertained by Malcolm III., who

Badlieu, where
the huge grave
alone awaited
him. In a gust
of morbid hor-
ror the half-bar- ,
barian prince
commanded the
tumulus to be
opened, that he
might behold
the remains of
those who had
perished ; and
from that mo-
ment he lost all
relish for life,
and plunging in-
to a war with
Malcolm, his

FAC-SIMILE OF A VIEW OF THE OLD TOWN, FROM A HOUSETOP AT THE
TRON CHURCH.

(Skekkod ky AUxmndor Rwncima m tks inch qf m pUying<*odL}

had formerly, in
his exile, been
treated with
kindness at the
Saxon court of
England, and
who married her
at Dunfermline.
Malcolm was
the son of Dun-
can, whom Mac-
beth slew; and
Shakspere, in
his tragedy, must
have been al-
luding to St
Margaret when
he wrote of her
as the mother,
instead of the

successor, was deserted in battle by his warriors, wife, of Malcolm, in the lines spoken by Macduff
taken captive, and, after having his eyes put out, Mcubetk, Act iv., scene 3 : —
died in grief and misery in the eighth year of his •• The qwm that ban thee,

reten. Oftenn upon Wrknect dun on her fat

He wit moceeded, in 1004, by Malcolm II., Died mrj 6»j ibe ttmd.”

who bad Lothian formally ceded to him by Eadnlf- In 1091 William Rufiit made nr on Scotland,
Gadtl, Sad of Northumberland, who bad pm- ana, taking the cesde of Alnwick by empriae,
1 kw MI y e naw iwd acme right of waalage over a, wantonly pot its gnmaon to the swaed. Malcolm.

ai

1 bntvc prince, demanded instant restitution, and,
At the head Qf an army, laid siege to the Normans

in the border stronghold.

At this tun e the winter snow was covenng all the
1 Vast eotpansc of leafless forest, and the hills then
t jgtQSfiog only heath and gorse — around the Castle of
BdiabtUgh; and there the queen, with her sons
Edmond, Edgar, and David, and her daughters
Mary and Matilda (sumamed the Good, afterwards
queen of Henry I. of England), were anxiously
waiting tidings from the king and his son Edward,

^ who had pressed the siege of Alnwick with such
severity that its garrison was hourly expected to
surrender. A sore sickness was now preying on
the wasted frame of the queen, who spent her days
in prayer for the success of the Scots and the
safety of the king and prince.

All old historians vie with each other in praise of
the virtuous Margaret “ When health and beauty
were hers/’ says one writer, “ she devoted her
strength to serve the poor and uncultivated people
whom God had committed to her care ; she fed them
with her own hand, smoothed their pillow in sick-
ness, and softened the barbarous and iron rule of
their feudal lords. No wonder that they regarded
her as a guardian angel among them.”

“ She daily fed three hundred,” says another
authority, “waiting upon them on her bended
knees, like a housemaid, washing their feet and
kissing them. For these and other expenses she
not only parted with her own royal dresses, but
more than once she drained the treasury.”

Malcolm, a Celt, is said to have been unable to
read the missals given him by his fair-haired Saxon,
but he was wont to kiss them and press them to
his heart in token Qf love and respect.

In the castle she built the little oratory on the
very summit of the rock. It t stands within the
citadel, and is in perfect preservation, measuring
about twenty-six feet' long by ten, and is spanned
by a finely ornamented apse arch that springs from
massive capitals, and is covered with zig-zag mould-
ings. It was dedicated to her in after years, and
liberally endowed.

u There she is said to have prophetically an-
nounced the surprise of the fortress in 1312, by
causing to be painted on the wall a representation
of a man scaling the Castle rock, with the inscrip-
tion underneath, 1 Gardes-vous Franca is,' a predic-
tion which was conveniently found to be verified
when the Castle was re taken from the English by
William Frank (or Francis) and Earl Randolph ;
though why die Saxon saint 'should prophesy in
French we are left to conjecture." r

' Connected with die residence of Edgar Athe-

ling's sister in Edinburgh Castle there is another
legend, which states that while there she com-
missioned her friend St Catherine— but which
St Catherine it fails to specify— to bring her som?
oil from Mount Sinai ; and that after long and
sore travel from the rocks of Mount Horeb, the
saint with the treasured oil came in sight of the
Castle of Edinburgh, on that ridge where stood
the Church of St Maty, built by Macbeth, baron
of Liberton. There she let fall the vessel con-
taining the sacred oil, which was spilt; but there
sprang up in its place a fountain of wonderful
medicinal efficacy, known now as the Balm Well
of St. Catherine, where the oil— which practical
folk say is bituminous and comes from the coal
seams — may still be seen floating on the limpid
water. It figured long in monkish legends. For
ages a mound near it was alleged to be the tomb of
St. Catherine ; and close by it James IV. erected a
beautiful little chapel dedicated to St Margaret,
but long since demolished.

During the king’s absence at Alnwick, the queen,
by the severity of her fastings and vigils, increased
a heavy illness under which she laboured. Two
days before her death, Prince Edgar, whom some
writers call her brother, and others her son, arrived
from the Scottish camp with tidings that Malcolm
had been slain, with her son Edward.

“ Then,” according to Lord Hailes, who quotes
Turgot’s Life of St. Margaret, “lifting up her eyes
and hands towards heaven, she said, * Praise and
blessing be to Thee, Almighty God, that Thou hast
been pleased to make me endure so bitter anguish
in the hour of my departure, thereby, as I trust, to
purify me in some measure from the corruption of
my sins; and Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, who
through the will of the Father, hast enlivened
the world by Thy death, oh, deliver me ! * While
pronouncing ‘deliver me’ she expired.”

This, according to the Bishop of St Andrews,
Turgot, previously Prior' of Durham, was after she
had heard mass in the present little oratory, and
been borne to the tower on the west side of the
rock ; and she died holding in her hand a famous
relic known as “the black rood of Scotland,” which
according to St iElred, “ was a cross an ell long,
of pure gold and wonderful workmanship, having
thereon an ivory figure of our Saviour marvellously
adorned with gold.”

This was on 16th of November, 1093, when she
was in the forty-seventh year of her age. Unless
history be false, with the majesty of a queen and
the* meekness of a saint J&aigsret possessed a
i beauty that falls but seldom to the lot of women;
and in her time she did much ‘to soften the

OLD AND NE W EDINBURGH. ffltCmk .

i

TheCutk-1

ST, MARGARETS CHAPEL

barbarism of the Scottish court She was magnifi-
cent in her own attire ; she increased the number
of persons in attendance on the king, and caused
him to be served at table in gold and silver plate.

She was canonised by Innocent IV. in 1951. For
several ages the apartment in which she expired
was known as “ ye blessit Margaret’s chalmer" (/>.,
chamber). A fountain on the west side of the 1
fortress long bore her name; and a small guard-
house on the western ramparts is still called the
Queen's, or St. Margaret's, Post.

The complete restoration of her oratory (says an
Edinburgh Courant of 1853) “has been effected
in a very satisfactory manner, under the superin-
tendence of Mr. Grant. The modem western
entrance has been built up, and an ancient one
re-opened at the north-west corner of the nave.
Here a new doorway has been built in the same
style with the rest of the building. The three
small round-headed windows have been filled with
stained glass — the light in the south side of the
apse representing St Margaret, the two in the
side of the nave showing her husband, King
Malcolm Canmore and their son St. David, and
the light in the west gable of the nave having
a cross and the sacred monogram with this in-
scription : — Hac adicuia olim Beat a Margareta
Regina Scotia , qua obiit M.XCIJ 1 r ., ingrata patria
negli^entia lapsa, Victoria Regina prognata aus -
piciis reslituta , A.D. M.DCCCLIII \*

St. Margaret had scarcely expired, when Bishop
Turgot, her children, and the whole court, were filled
with terror, on finding the fortress environed by an
army composed of fierce western Highlanders, “clad
in the dun deer's hide, striped breacan, and hau-
berks (or lurichs) of jingling rings,” and led by
Donald Bane, or the fair-haired, the younger brother
of Malcolm III., who had fled to the Hebrides, as
the latter did to England, on the usurpation by
Macbeth.

Without opposition he had himself proclaimed
king, and promised to give the Hebrides and other
isles to Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, for as-
sistance if it were required.

He had resolved to put the orphan children of
Malcolm to death, but believing that egress from
the fortress on the steep could only be had by the
gates facing the little town, he guarded them alone.
The children thus escaped by a western postern,
and fled to England, where they found protection
with their uncle, Edgar Atheling. The two prin-
cesses were afterwards married : Mary to Eustace,
Count Of Boulogne, the great Crusader ; # and
Matilda to Henry of England— a union extremely
popular with the Saxon people.

By the same postern Turgot and others o« reftfly
and reverently conveyed the body of the qpe#*
and carried it “ to Dunfermline in the woqds; and
that Heaven might have some share in protecting
| remains so sacred, the legendaries record that a
miraculous mist arose from the earth, concealing
the bishop, the royal corpse, and its awe-stricken
bearers, from the half-savage Donald and his«red 4
haired Islesmen, and did not pass away until they
had crossed in safety the Passagium Regina, or
Queen's Ferry, nine miles distant, whfere Margaret
had granted land for the maintenance of a passage
boat " — a grant still in force.

She was buried at Dunfermline, under the great
block of grey marble which still marks her grave j
and in the sides thereof may yet be seen the
sockets of the silver lamps which, after her canoni-
sation, burned there until the Reformation, when the
Abbot of Dunfermline fled to the Castle of Edin-
burgh with her head in a jewelled coffer, and gave
it to some Jesuits, who took it to Antwerp. From
thence it was borne to the Escurial in Spain, where ^
it is still preserved by the monks of St Jerome.

Her son Edgar, a prince of talent and valour,
recovered the throne by his sword, and took up
his residence in the Castle of Edinburgh, where
he had seen his mother expire, and where he, too,
passed away, on the 8th of January, 1107. The
register of the Prioiy of St Andrews, in recording
his demise, has these words : — “ Mortem* in Dun -
Edin, est sepu/tus in Dunfcrmling?

On his death-bed he bequeathed that part of
Cumberland which the kings of Scotland possessed
to his younger brother David. Alexander I., sur-
named “ the Fierce,” eldest brother of the latter,
was disposed to dispute the validity of this dona-
tion ; but perceiving that David had won over the
English barons to his interest, he acquiesced ip this
partial dismemberment of the kingdom.

It is in the reign of this monarch, in the first
years of the twelfth century, that the first notices
of Edinburgh as a royal city and residence are
most distinctly found, while in that of his suc-
cessor, David I., crowned in 1124, after being long
resident at the court of his sister Matilda, where,
according to Malmesbuvy, “ his manners were po
lished from the rust of Scottish barbarity,” and
where he married Matilda daughter of Waltheot
Earl of Northumberland, we discover the origin
of many of the most important local features still
surviving. He founded the abbey of Holyrood,
called by Fordun “ MmatUrium Sand* Crude A
Crag. n This convent, the prectnsor of the §M
dbbey, he is said to have placed at tat wi thin ta
Castle, and some of the earliest gifts Of Hi sateriy

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH

m»catk

new monastery were the churches
ibett and of the Castle, among which
land belonging to the former is marked

K ^mlbimtain which nses near the king's garden,
Ifab toad leading to St Cuthbert’s church," f>,
Jttue fountain in the Well-house Tower.

*fhis valley— the future North Loch— was then

Castle, where, in the twenty-first year of his reign,
he granted a charter to the Abbey of Kelso, the
witnesses to which, apud Castrum Puellarum, were
John, Bishop of Glasgow ; Prince Henry, his son ;
William, his nephew; Edward, the Chancellor;
“ Bartholomeo filio Comitis , et WUlielmo frater
ejus ; Jordano Hayrum;” Hugo de Morville, the

SI MARGARLT’s CHAl'LL, EDINBURGH CASTLE.

the garden, which Malcolm, the son of Pagan, cul- constable , Odenell de Umphraville ; Robert Bruce ;
tivated for David II , and where tournaments were William of Somerville , David de Ohphant ; and
held, 11 while deep pools and wide morasses, tangled J William of Lindsay.

wood and wild animate, made the rude diverging i The charter of foundation to the abbey of
pathways to the east and westward extremely dan- Holyrood— which will be referred to more fully in
gerous for long after, though lights were burned at its place — besides conferring valuable revenues,
the Hermitage of St. Anthony on the Crag and derivable from the general resources of the city,
the spire of St John of Cor&torphin, to guide the gave the monks a right to dues to nearly the same
unfortunate wight who was foolhardy enough to amount from the royal revenues of the port of
travel after nightfall." Perth, which was the more ancient capital of

In IT44 we find King David resident in the Scotland.

TteOutk]

KING DAKto L

A

DUNGEONS IN I HE CASTLE IJELOW QUEEN MARY’S ROOM.

CHAPTER III.

CASTLE OF EDINBURGH— (continued)

The Tegend of the White Hart— Holy rood \hbf> founded— 1 he Monks of the Castro m Puellarom— David I *■ numerous rndnementl TUp
Death— Ptrgu« I ord of Calloway das there U illiam the Lion Castle Garrmoued by the English for Twelve Yean— The Castle e Royal
Residence — I he War of the Scottish Succession— The Castle in the hands of Edward 1 —Frank's Escalade* The Fortra« Dismantled
— Again in the hands of the English— Bullock s Stratagem for its Re-capture David ■ Tower

“The well-known legend of the White Hart,”
says Daniel Wilson, “ most probably had its origin
in some real occurrence, magnified by the supersti-
tion of a rude and illiterate age. More recent ob-
servations at least suffice to show that it existed
at a much earlier date than Lord Hailes referred
it to.”

It is recorded that on Rood-day, the 14th of
September, in the harvest of zia8, the weather
being fine and beautiful, King David and his
courtiers, after mass, left the Castle by that gate
before which he was wont to dispense justice to his
people, and issued forth to the chase in the wild
country that lay around — for then over miles of the
land now covered by the jew and much of the
old city, for ages into times unknown, the oak-trees
of the primeval forest of Dramsheugh had shaken
down their leaves and acorns upon the wild and
oow extinct animals of -the chase. And here it

may be mentioned that boars' tusks of most enor-
mous size were found in 1846 in the bank to the
south of the half-moon battery, together with an
iron axe, the skull and bones of a man.

On this Rood-day we are told that the king
issued from the Castle contrary to the advice of
his confessor, Alfwin, an Augustinian monk of great
sanctity and learning, who reminded him that it
was the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and
should be passed in devotion, not in bunting; hot
of this advice the king took no heed

Amid the dense forest and in the ardour of tho
chase he became separated from his train, in “the
vail that l>is to the cist Ora the said casteU/^aad
found himself at the foot of the stupendous Ctig^
where, “under the shade of a leafy tree,” he was
almost immediately assailed by a white stag of
#gantac sire, which had been maddened fy ft*
pohutt, “noys and <fyn of bugiUts,* and which*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH

(Hhcmk

Bellenden, was now standing boldly
with its branching antlers, put the life
ffrw mm monarch in imminent jeopardy, as he
m I «f|»we were both borne to the ground

short hunting-sword, while fruitlessly en-
deavouring to defend himself against the infuriated
there appeared — continues die legend — a
silver cloud, from the centre of which there came
forth a hand, which placed in that of David a
sparkling cross of miraculous construction, in so far
that the material of which it was composed could
never be discovered. Scared by this interposition,
the white stag fled down the hollow way between
the hills, but was afterwards slain by Sir Gregan
Crawford, whose crest, a stag’s head erased with
a cross-crosslet between the antlers, is still borne
by his descendants, the Crawfords of Kilbimie,
in memory of that eventful day in the forest of
Drumsheugh.

Thoughtful, and oppressed with great awe, the
king slowly wended his way through the forest to
the Castle ; but the wonder did not end there, for
when, after a long vigil, the king slept, there ap-
peared by his couch St. Andrew, the apostle of
Scotland, surrounded by rays of glory, instructing
him to found, upon the exact spot where he had
been miraculously saved, a twelfth monastery for
the canons regular of St. Augustine ; and, in obe-
dience to this vision, he built the noble abbey
of Holyrood, “ in the little valley between two
mountains' 1 — i.e., the Craigs and the Calton.

* sisting of the abbots of Holyrood and Stirling,
Gregory bishop of Dunkeld, the Earls of Fife and
March, Hugo de Morville the Lord High Con-
stable, William Lord of Camwath, David de
Oliphant a knight of Lothian, Henry the son of
Swan, and many others, and the matter in debate
was adjudicated on satisfactorily.

David— 44 sair sanct for the crown” though King
James I. is said to have styled him — was one of
the best of the early kings of Scotland. 44 1 have
seen him,” remarks Aldred, “quit his horse and
dismiss his hunting equipage when any, even the
humblest of his subjects, desired an audience ; he
sometimes employed his leisure hours in the culture
of his garden, and in the philosophical amusement
of budding and engrafting trees.”

In the priory of Hexham, which was then in
Scottish territory, he was found dead, in a posture
of devotion, on the 24th of May, 1153, and was
succeeded by his grandson Malcolm IV. who,
though he frequently resided in the Castle, con-
sidered Scone his capital rather than Edinburgh.
In 1153 he appointed Galfrid de Melville, of
Melville in Lothian, to be sheriff of the fortress,
and became a great benefactor to the monks
within it.

In 1160, Fergus, Lord of Galloway, a turbulent
thane, husband of the Princess Elizabeth daughter
of Henry I. of England, having taken arms against
the Crown, was defeated in three desperate battles
by Gilbert de Umphraville ; after which he gave his

Therein the marvellous cross was preserved till son Uchtred as a hostage, and assumed the cowl
it was lost at a long subsequent period ; but, in J as an Augustine friar in the Castle of Edinburgh,
memory of St. David’s adventure on Rood-day, a where— after bestowing the priory of £t. Marie de

stag’s head with a cross between the antlers is still
borne as the arms of the Canongate. Alfwin was '
appointed first abbot, and left a glorious memory'
for many virtues.*

Though nobly endowed, this famous edifice was

Tray 11 as a dependant on Holyrood — he died, full
of grief and mortification, in 1161.

Malcolm died in 1165, and was succeeded by
William the Lion, who generally resided at Had-
dington ; but many of his public documents are dated

not built for several years, during which the “Apud Monasterium Sanctas Cruets de Costello
monks were received into the Castle, and occupied j In 1174 the Castle 'fell, for the first time,
buildings which had been previously the abode , into the hands of the English. William the Lion
of a community of nuns, who, by permission of having demanded the restitution of Northumber-
Popfe Alexander III., were removed, the monks, land, Henry of England affected to comply, but
as Father Hay tells us, being deemed 44 as fitter 1 afterwards invaded Scotland, and was repulsed,
to live among soldiers.” Abbot William appears, ' In turn William entered England at the head of
in 115*1 as. second superior of the monks in the , 80,000 men, who sorely ravaged the northern
Castrum Puellarum, where they resided till 1176. counties, but being captured by treacheiy near
' A vehement dispute respecting the payment of Alnwick, and treated with wanton barbarity and
tithes having occuraed between Robert bishop of indecency, his vast force dispersed. A ransom of
8& Andrews and *Gaufrid abbot of Dunfermline, 100, 000— an enormous sum in those days—

k rins decided by the king, opted CasUUum was demanded, and die Castle was given, with
ypodtarumt in pteseace of a great convention, con- j some others, as a hostage for the king. Fortunately,

a — * ml however, that which was lost by the chances bf

* "Htwoiteb Bdinbwfh Caatk.” | w •» quickly restored by more pleasant 1

IteCastk.)

THE CASTLE A ROYAL RESIDENCE.

ft*

for, a matrimonial alliance having been concluded
between Ermengarde de Beaumont (cousin of
Henxy) and King William, the Castle was thriftily
given up as part of her dowry, after having had an
English garrison for nearly twelve years.

Alexander II., their son, convened his first
parliament in Edinburgh in 1215. Alexander III.,
son of the preceding, having been betrothed to
Margaret daughter of Henry III. of England
nine years before their nuptials were celebrated
at “York in 1242, the queen, according to Amot,
had Edinburgh Castle appointed as her resi-
dence; but it would seem to have been more
of a stronghold than a palace, as she complained
to her father that it was a “ sad and solitary place,
without verdure, and, by reason of its vicinity to
the sea, unwholesome ;” and “that she was not
permitted to make excursions through the kingdom,
nor to choose her female attendants.” She was in
her sixteenth year.

Walter Earl of Menteith was at this time
governor of the fortress, and all the offices of the
< ity and of the nation itself were in the hands of
his powerful family. Many Englishmen of rank ac-
companied the voung queen-consort, and between
these southern intruders and the jealous Scottish
nobles there soon arose disputes that were both
hot and bitter. As usual, the kingdom was rent
into two powerful factions — one secretly favouring
Henry, who artfully wished to have Scotland under
his own dominion ; another headed by Walter
Comyn, John de Baliol, and others, who kept
possession of Edinburgh, and with it the persons
of the young monarch and his bride. These
patriotically resisted the ambitious attempts of the
King of England, whose emissaries, on being joined
by the Earls of Carrick, Dunbar, and Stratheam,
and Alan Dureward, High Justiciary, while their
rivals were preparing to hold a parliament at
Stirling, took the Castle of Edinburgh by surprise,
and liberated the royal pair, who were triumphantly
conducted to a magnificent bridal chamber, and
afterwards had an interview with Henry at Wark,
in Northumberland.

During the remainder of the long and prosperous
Teign of Alexander III. the fortress continued to
be the chief place of the royal residence, and for
holding his courts for the transaction of judicial
affairs, and much of the public business is said to
have been transacted in St Margaret’s chamber.

In 1278 William of Kinghorn was governor,
and about this period the Castle was repaired and
strengthened. It was then the safe deposit of the
principal records and the regalia of the kingdom.

And now we approach die darkest and Woodiest

portion of the Scottish annals ; when aft the death
of the Maid of Norway (the little Queen Margaret)
came the contested succession to the crown between
Bruce, Baliol, and others ; and an opportunity was
given to Edward I. of England of advancing a
claim to the Scottish crown as absuitihas it was
baseless, but which that ferocious prince prosecuted
to the last hour of his life with unexampled be r*
barity and treachery. *

On the nth of June, 1291, the Castle of Edin-
burgh and all the strongholds in the LowjUmds were
unwisely and unwarily put into the hands of the
crafty Plantagenet by the grasping and numerous
claimants, on the ridiculous pretence that the sub-
ject in dispute should be placed in the power of
the umpire ; and the governors of the various fort-
resses, on finding that the four nobles who had been
appointed guardians of the realm till the dispute
was adjusted had basely abandoned Scotland to
her fate, they, too, quietly gave up their trusts to
Edward, who (according to Prynne’s 11 History ”)
appointed Sir Radulf Basset de Drayton governor
of Edinburgh Castle, with a garrison of English
soldiers. According to Holinshed he personally
took this Castle after a fifteen days’ siege with his
warlike engines.

On the vigil of St. Bartholomew a list was
drawn up of the contents of the Treasury in the
Castra de Edinburg; and among other religious
regalia we find mentioned the Black Rood of
Scotland, which St. Margaret venerated so much.
By Edward’s order some of the records were left
in the Castle under the care of Basset, but all the
most valuable documents were removed to Eng-
land, where those that showed too clearly the
ancient independence of Scotland were carefully
destroyed, or tampered with, and others were left
to moulder in the Tower of London.

On the 8th of July, 1292, we find Edward again
at Edinburgh, where, as self-styled Lord Paramount,
he received within the chapel of St Margaret the
enforced oath of fealty from Adam, Abbot of Holy-
rood; John, Abbot of Newbattle ; Sir Bijan le Jay,
Preceptor of the Scottish Templars ; the Ppor of
St. John of Jerusalem ; and Christina, Prioress of
Emanuel, in Stirlingshire.

Bruce having refused to accept a crown them
of its rank, Edward declared ip favour Of the
pitiful Baliol, after which orders were issued to
the captains of the Scottish castles to deliver
them up to John, King of Scotland. Shame at las
filled the heart of the latter; he took die field, end
lost the battle of Dunbar. Edward, wished by
fifteen thousand Welsh and a horde of ScO tt h h
traitors, appeared before E di nb u rgh Ouh; At

[ThaCbati*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH-

jtie gffri t pn made a fruitless defence
at June, 1296, when they were cjm-
capitulate— the weather being intensely
ifcd the wells having dried up. In accord-
iMutt Edward’s usual sanguinary policy, the
UiMt garri son was put to the sword with ruthless
Audty, and Walter de Huntercombe, a baron of
Jhithumberland, was made governor of the new
Otte ; but in the next year Wallace with his pa-
triots swept like a torrent over the Lowlands.
Victorious at Stirling,

was made on the night of the 14th of March*— which
proved dark and stormy — at the most difficult
part of those precipitous bluffs which overhang the
Princes’ Street Gardens, where a fragment of ruin,
named Wallace’s Cradle, is still visible. Under his
guidance, with only thirty resolute men, Randolph
scaled the walls at midnight, and, after a fierce
resistance, the garrison was overpowered. There
are indications that some secret pathway, known to
the Scottish garrison, existed, for during some
operations in 1821

in particular, he slew
'Cressingham, and re-
captured all the for-
tresses — Edinburgh
among them. Scot-
land was cleared of the
English ; but the inva-
sion of 1298 followed;
Wallace was betrayed,
and too well do we
know how he died.

The year 1300 saw
“Johan de Kingeston,
Connestableet Gardeyn
du Chastel de Eden-
buxgh,” and four years
afterwards he was suc-
ceeded by Sir Piers
de Lombard, a brave
knight of Gascony.

Robert Bruce was
now in arms. He in
turn had became con-
queror ; he invaded
England in 13 11, and
by the following year

traces were found ot
steps cut in the rock,
about seventyfeetabove
the fragment named
“Wallace’s Cradle"—
a path supposed to
have been completed
by a movable ladder.

Sir Piers de Lombard
(sometimes called Le-
land) joined King
Robert, who, according
to Barbour, created him
Viscount of Edinburgh ;
but afterwards suspect-
ing him of treason, and
“ that he had an Eng-
lish hart, made him to
be hangit and drawen.”

To prevent it from
being re-captured or
re-garrisoned, Ran-
dolph dismantled the
Castle, which for four-
and-twenty years after-
wards remained a de-

had re-captured nearly chancel arch of st. Margaret’s chapel. solate ruin abandoned

every castle but that of

Edinbuigh, the reduction of which he entrusted to |
the noble Sir Thomas Randolph of Strathdon,
Earl of Moray, who has been described as “a
man altogether made up of virtues."

The English or Norman garrison suspecting
the fidelity of Sir Piers, placed him in a dungeon,
and under a newly-elected commander, were pre-
pared to offer a desperate resistance, when a ro-
mantic incident restored the Castle to the king
of Scotland.

Among the soldiers of Randolph was one named
William Frank, who volunteered to lead an escalade
«p a steep and intricate way by which he had been
accustomed in Conner years, to- visit a girl in the
ctyef whom lm was enamoured. Frequent use had
*£pad* Urn fiuafluur with the perilous ascent, and it

to the bat and the owl.

While in this state its shattered walls afforded
shelter for a single night, in 1335, to the routed
troops of Guy, Count of Namur, who had landed
at Berwick, and was marching to join Edward
III., but was encountered on the Burghmuir by
the Earls of Moray and March, with powerful
forces, when a fierce and bloody battle ensued.
Amid it, Richard Shaw, a Scottish squire, was
defied to single combat by a Flemish knight in a
closed helmet, and both fell, eadi transfixed by the
other’s lance. On the bodies being stripped of
their armour, the gallant stranger proved to be
a woman! While the issue of the battle was
still doubtful, the earls mere joined by fresh
| ibices under Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie,
William Douglas, and Sr David de Arman. The

TheCude.]

Count’s troopa* chiefly cavalry, now gave way, but
still fighting with the dogged valour of Walloons.
Part of them that fled by St Mary’s Wynd were
nearly cut to pieces by Sir David de Annan, who
led his men battle-axe in hand. The few that
escaped him joined others who had reached the
Castle. There

they slaughtered
their horses, made
a rampart of the
bodies, and fought
behind it with an
energy bom of
despair, till hun-
ger and thirst on
the following day
compelled them
to capitulate, and
the Earl of Mo-
ray suffered them
to depart on giv-
ing oath never
again to bear arms
against David II.
of Scotland.

In 1867 a great
quantity of
bones — the relics
of this conflict —
were discovered
about five feet
below the surface,
on the northern
verge of the
Burghmuir, where
now Glengyle
Terrace is built,
and were decently
re-interred by the
authorities.

In 1336 Edward
III., still prose-
cuting the cause “Wallace’s cradle,” Edinburgh castle.

of the minimi

Baliol against King David, re 4 ortified the ruin ; and [
on the 15th June Sir John de Kingeston was again ,
appointed its governor ; but he had a hard time of {
it ; the whole adjacent country was filled by adven- j
torous bands of armed Scots. The most resolute '
and active of these was the band of Sir Alexander \

Ramsay of Dalhousie, whose place of retreat was
m the caves beneath the romantic house of Haw-
thomdeq^ then the abode of a traitor naped
Abernathy, and which ate so ingeniously con-
tracted jis to dude the vigilance of the moat

cunning enemy to whom the mm#* 'Jfdtmm*..
The entrance is still seen in the ddsf^the deep
draw-well, which served alike to &otk their pur-
pose and to secure for the conceded a catdy
supply of pure water; From dab poipt R amsay
often extended his ravages into Novdmmberianii

vOfBTttl WUn

glory and honour,
the noble King
Robert, the skil-
ful Randolph, and
the chivalrous Sir
James Douglas,
had all gone
down to the silent
tomb; but other
heroes succeeded
them, and valiant
deeds were done.
The Scots thought
of nothing but
battle ;fhe plough
was allowed to
rust, and the earth
to take care of
itself By 1337
the English were
again almost en-
tirely driven out
of Scotland, and
the Castle of
Edinburgh was.
recaptured from
them through an
ingenious strata-
gem, planned by
William Bullock,
a priest* who had
been captain , of
Cupar Casde for
Baliol, “and wan
a man very brave

EDINBURGH CASTLE. and fititbfill tO the

Scots, and of

great use to them,” according to Buchanan.*

Under his directions, Walter Curry, of Dundee,
received into his ship two hundred select Scottish
soldiers, led by William Douglas, Sir Simon Fraser,
Sir John Sandilands, and Bullock 4 bo. Anchoring
in Leith Roads, the latter presented himself to the
governor as master of an English ship just msimd
with wines and provisions, which be oflfcrad toseti
fertile use of the garrison. The bait took *11 the
igrim readily that the sup p osed obtain hod dm#
shaven himself In tbeAnglo-No m*»iti#ph ■« s

muCartk

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

W <jhyt>ft day, accompanied by twelve armed
WKfh as seamen, with hoods over their

jH^lir ri. 1 ir appeared at the Castle gates, where they
to overturn their casks and hampers, so
prevent the barriers being closed by the
and warders, who were instantly slain. At
‘4^|iven signal — the shrill blast of a bugle-horn —
Qtouglas and his companions, with their war-cry,
.vushed from a place of concealment close by. Sir
Richard de Limoisin, the governor, made a bitter
resistance, but was overpowered in the end, and
his garrison became the prisoners of David II., I
who returned from France in the following month,
accompanied by his queen Johanna; and by that
time not an Englishman was left in Scotland. But
miserable was the fate of Bullock. By order of a
Sir David Berkeley he was thrown into the castle
of Lochindorb, in Morayshire, and deliberately
starved to death. On this a Scottish historian
remarks, “ It is an ancient saying, that neither the
powerful, nor the valiant, nor the wise, long
flourish in Scotland, since envy obtaineth the
mastery of them all.”

When, a few years afterwards, the unfortunate
tattle of Durham ended in the defeat of the Scots,
and left their king a prisoner of war, we find
in the treaty for his ransom, the merchants of
Edinburgh, together with those of Perth, Aberdeen,
and Dundee, binding themselves to see it paid.
In 1357 a Parliament was held at Edinburgh for
its final adjustment, when the Regent Robert
^afterwards Robert II.) presided; in addition to
the clergy and nobles, there were present delegates
from seventeen burghs, and among these Edinburgh
appeared at the head for the first time.

In 1365 we find a four years* truce with Eng-
land, signed at London on the 20th May, and in
the Castle on the 12th of June; and another for

fourteen years, dated at the Castle 38th October,
i37i-

So often had the storm of war desolated its
towers, that the Castle of Edinburgh (which
became David’s favourite residence after his re-
turn from England in 1357) was found to require
extensive repairs, and to these the king devoted
himself. On the cliff to the northward he built
“David’s Tower,” an edifice of great height and
strength, and therein he died on the 22nd Feb-
ruary, 1371, and was buried before the high altar
at Holyrood. The last of the direct line of Bruce—
a name inseparably connected with the military
glory and independence of Scotland — David was a
monarch who, in happier times, would have done
much to elevate his people. The years of his
| captivity in England he beguiled with his pencil,
and in a vault of Nottingham Castle “he left
behind him,” says Abercrombie, in his “ Martial
Achievements,” “ the whole story of our Saviour’s
Passion, curiously engraven on the rock with his
own hands. For this, says one, that castle became
as famous as formerly it had been for Mortimer’s
hole.”

It was during his reign that, by the military
ingenuity of John Earl of Carrick and four other
knights of skill, the Castle was so well fortified, that,
with a proper garrison, the Duke of Rothesay was
able to resist the utmost efforts of Henry IV.,
when he besieged it for several weeks in 1400.
The Castle had been conferred as a free gift upon
Earl John by his father King Robert, and in con-
sequence of the sufferings endured by the inhabi-
tants when the city was burned by the English,
under Richard II., he by charter empowered the
citizens to build houses within the fortress, free of
fees to the constable, on the simple understanding
that they were persons of good fame.

CHAPTER IV.

CASTLE OF EDINBURGH— (continued).

Pr Og y— of tho .City— Ambauador of Charles VI.- Edinburgh burned— Henry IV. baffled -Albany's Prophecy— Laws regarding the Building
of Hottaea— Sumptuary Laws, 1457— Murder of Jamea I —Coronation of James II.— Court Intrigues- Lord Chancellor Crichton— Arrogance
of tho End «f Douglas- Faction Wan— The Castle Besieged— 1 * The Black Dinner "—Edinburgh walled— Its Strength— Bale-fine.

The chief characteristic of the infant city now was land, though its centra! street presented but a
that of a frontier town, ever on the watch to take meagre line of thatched or stanesclakd houses,
anus against an invader, and resolute to resist him. few of which were more than twenty feet in height
Wtlstngham speaks of it as a, village; and in 1385 Froissart numbers them at 4,000, which would
, it 9 population is supposed to have barely exceeded give a greater population tfcEan has been alleged,
pot Froissart called it the Paris of Scot- With die accession of Robert II.— die first of tfr*

IteGattk.]

THE DUKE OF &OTHESAY.

Stuart monarchs — a new era began in its history, ' castles, resorted to the simple expedient dt d ri vi n g
and it took a standing as the chief burgh in | off all the cattle and sheep, provisions itod g o ods ,

** L 17 , “ J even to the thatch of. their houses, and leaving;

nothing but bare walls for the enemy to wreak their
vengeance on; but they never put up their Hi rasd*
till, by a terrible retaliating invasion fetfo the more
fertile parts of England, they fully ma de up for
their losses. And this wretched state of affairs, for
nearly 500 years, lies at the door of the Plantagenet
and Tudor kings.

The aged King Robert III and his queen, the
once beautiful Annabella Drummond, reaided in the
Castle and in the abbey of Holyrood alternately.
We are told that on one occasion, when the Duke
of Albany, with several of the courtiers, were con-
versing one' night on the ramparts of the former.

Scotland, the relations of which with England, for
generations after, partook rather of a vague pro-
longed armistice in time of war than a settled
peace, and thus all rational progress was arrested
or paralysed, and was never likely to be otherwise
so long as the kings of England maintained the
insane pretensions of Edward 1 ., deduced from
Brute the fabulous first king of Albion !

. Tn 1383 Robert II. was holding his court in
the Castle when he received there the ambassador
of Charles VI., on the 20th August, renewing the
ancient league with France. In the following year
a truce ended ; the Earls of March and Douglas
began the war with spirit, and cut off a rich convoy

on its way to Roxburgh. This brought the Duke ! a singular light was seen afar off at the horizon, and

of Lancaster and the Earl of Buckingham before
Edinburgh. Their army was almost innumerable
(according to Abercrombie, following Walsingham),
but the former spared the city in remembrance of
his hospitable treatment by the people when he was
among them, an exile from the English court — a
kindness for which the Scots cared so little that
they followed up his retreat so sharply, that he laid
the town and its great church in ashes when he re-
turned in the following year.

In 1390 Robert III. ascended the throne, and in
that year we find the ambassadors of Charles VI.
again witnessing in the Castle the royal seal and sig-
nature attached to the treaty for mutual aid and
defence against England in all time coming. This
brought Henry IV., as we have said, before the
Castle in 1400, with a well-appointed and numerous
army, in August

From the fortress the young and gallant David
Duke of Rothesay sent a herald with a challenge
to meet him in mortal combat, where and when
he chose, with a hundred men of good blood on
each side, and determine the war in that way.
“ But King Henry was in no humour to forego the
advantage he already possessed, at the head of a

across the starry sky there flashed a bright meteor,,
carrying behind it a long train of sparks.

“ Mark ye, sirs ! ” said Albany, " yonder prodigy
portends either the ruin of a nation or the downfall
of some great prince;” and an old chronicler omits
not to record that the Duke of Rothesay (who,
had he ascended the throne, would have been
David III.), perished soon e/ter of famine, in the
hands of Ramomie, at Falkland.

Edinburgh was prosperous enough to be able to
contribute 50,000 merks towards the ransom of
James I., the gifted author of “ The King's Quhair*
(or Book), who had been lawlessly captured at
sea in his boyhood by the English, and was left
in their hands for nineteen yemfe A captive by his
designing unde the Regent Albany ; and though
his plans for the pacification of the Highlands kept
him much in Perth, yet, in 1430, he was in
Edinburgh with Queen Jane and the Court, when
he received the surrender of Alexander Earl of
Ross, who had been in rebellion but was defeated
by the royal troops in Lochaber.

As yet no Scottish noble had built a mansion in
Edinburgh, where a great number of the houses were
actually constructed of wood from the adjacent

raise ; and so, contenting himself with a verbal
equivocation in reply to this knightly challenge, he
sat down with his numerous host before the Castle
till (with the usual consequences of the Scottish
reception of such invaders) cold and rain, and
absolute dearth of provisions, compelled him to
raise the inglorious siege, and hastily re-cross the
borders, without doing any notable injury either in
his progress or retreat”*

When unable to resist, the people of the pnrire
and country, who were not

Wibort M

more numerous army than Scotland could then J forest, thatched with straw, and few were more than

two storeys in height ; but in the third Parliament
of James I., held at Perth in 1425, to avert the
conflagrations to which the Edinbuighers were 10
liable, laws were ordained requiring the magistrates
to have in readiness seven or eight ladder! of
twenty feet in length, with three or four large saws,
for the common use, and six or more “cliekei of
iron, to draw down timber and rmffes the! are
fired ? and that no fire waa to be convened bom
one bouse to another within the town, unless h» a
levered ves s el or lantern. Another law forbade
people mi Writs to live with their fikafo but

mwoudft.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

^IpMSbBMa,* for the encouragement of

fee reign of James I. and his successor
titemm psmsed against excess m dress , and it
HikM* Mid that, though edicts were passed for
^ ^ Scotland, even to the shape of a

hoods ; “ and as to their gownes, that na woman
weare mertrickes nor letteis, nor tailes unfit in
length, nor furred under, but on the Halie-daie
and that no labourers nor husbandmen were to
wear anything on work-days but grey and white ;
and even on holidays but light blue, green, red.

-

s'/'

EDINBURGH CASTLE, AS XT WAS BEFORE THE SIEGE OF 1573.

woman’s cap, it was perhaps the most lawless land and their wives the same , the cinches of the latter
in Europe. to be of their own making, and not to exceed the

AH save those who possessed aoo merks of price “ of xl pennyes the dne.”
yearly rent were forbidden to wear silk or furs, or By the same laws, advocates who spoke for money
borderings of pearl or bullion ; and the feminine in Parliament were ordained u to have habits of
love of display attracted the attention of Parlia- grene, of the fassoun of a tuneike, and die sleeves
sntnt at Edinburgh in 1457* It was ordained that to be oppin as a tabert"
oidaens should make their wives and daughters From the date of the qrud assassination of
ttpfM to c ostumes suitable to their estate and James I, — the poet, soldiery aid lawgiver— may be
00 their heads short curches with little™ considered the time when Edinburgh

«n»o mm

JAMES II. OUtOWNED.

the permanent and undisputed capital of Scotland.
Sorrow and indignation spread over all the realm
when the fate of James was heard, and no place
seemed to afford such security to the royal person
as the impregnable Castle of Edinburgh , thus
Queen Jane, ignorant of the ramifications of that
conspiracy by which her pnncely husband was
slam (actually m her arms), instantly joined her
son James II, who since his birth had dwelt
there. It was then m the hands of William Baron
of Crichton — a powerful, subtle, and ambitious
statesman, who was Master of the Household

with every solemnity, on dm *5th of SMh, 149^
The queen-mother was named his guardian, with
an allowance of 4,000 merits yearly, Sad Archibald
the great Earl of Douglas and Angus (Duke of
Touraine) was appointed lieutenant-general of the
kingdom. During the two subsequent yean the
little king resided entirely m the Castle under the
custody of Cnchton, now Lord Chancellor, gready
to the displeasure of the queen and her party, who
found him thus placed completely beyond their
control or iriuence.

In short, it was no longer the qiieen-mother,

EU1NS OF THE WELL-HOUSE TOWER. (Frpm a Drawng by WmiUr H FmUm, RAJiJ

Within forty days nearly all concerned in the
murder of the^ate king were brought to Edin-
burgh, where the ignoble were at once consigned
to the hangman, but for the Earl of Athol and
other titled leaders were devised tortures worthy
•alone of Chinese or Kaffir ingenuity. Crowned
by a red-hot diadem as “ King of Traitors," at the
Market Cross, after undergoing three days of un-
exampled agonies in sight of the people and the
Papal Nuncio, afterwards Pius II., the body of the
earl was dragged nude through the streets; it was
then beheaded and quartered.

On the assembly of the Lords of Parliament,
their first cure was die coronation of Jame% IL,
wrho was conducted in precess ion from die Castle
to dm dpseh of Hotpood, where fee was crowned,

but the crafty Crichton, who had unc o ntrol l ed
custody of the little sovereign, and who thus was
enabled to seize the revenues, and surround him
by a host of parasites, who permitted n e ith e r her,
nor the Regent, Sir Alexander Livingrtone of
Callender, to have any share in the government
A bitter feud was the consequence, and Scotland
again was rent into two hostile ftethm* 0 state of
matters of which the English codd not, as usual,
make prefit, as they were embroiled a m o n g them-
selves The queen remained with dm regent at
Stiriing, while her son was literally a pri so ner el
Edinburgh; but, womanlike, the mother famed a
plan of her own to out w it the eneoqr*

# VWtifsg the Castie^ she professed a groat tepmti
fa dm Chancritor, andaderire tobewfaherip*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.,

JTb. Cud*

took up her abode. After having
all suspicion, she affected to re-
IHtefVvow she had made to visit the White
a^PPfetttchin (according to the “ Chronicles of
M ), and bade adieu to the Chancellor over-
many tender recommendations of the
king to his care. She set forth betimes next
C o r nin g with her retinue, and baggage borne on
Sumpter horses. In one of the arks or chests
strapped on one of these she had the young king
concealed, with his own consent. He was thus
conveyed to Leith, and from thence by water to
Stirling, where she placed him in the hands of the
Regent Livingstone, while the haughty Douglas

his son William, then in his sixteenth year ; and
now the subtle and unscrupulous old Chancellor
thought that the time had come to destroy with
safety a family he alike feared and detested. In
the flush of his youth and pride, fired by the
flattery of his dependents, the young earl, in the
retinue and splendour that surrounded him far
surpassed his sovereign. He never rode abroad
with less than two thousand lances under his
banner, well horsed, and sheathed in mail, and
he actually, according to Buchanan, sent as his
ambassadors to the court of France Sir Malcolm
Fleming and Sir John Lauder of the Bass, to
obtain for him a new patent of the duchy of

kept aloof, as one who took no interest in the Touraine, which had been conferred on his grand-

petty intrigues around the throne. Livingstone father by Charles VII. Arrogance so unwonted

now unfurled the royal standard, levied troops, and and grandeur so great alarmed both Crichton and
laid siege to the Castle of Edinburgh ; but the wary Livingstone, who could not see where all this was.
Chancellor, finding that he had been outwitted, to end.

pretended to compromise matters by delivering Any resort to violence would lead to civil war.
the keys of the gates into the hands of the king, He was therefore, with many flatteries, lured to
after which they all supped together in the great partake of a banquet in the Castle of Edinburgh,
hall of the fortress. Crichton was confirmed in his accompanied by his brother the little Lord David

office of Chancellor, and the other as regent and ' and Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld. With
guardian of the royal person, a state of affairs not every show of welcome they were placed at the
fated to last long. same table with the king, while the portcullis was

Livingstone having quarrelled with the queen, suddenly lowered, the gates carefully shut, and
she carried off the young king again, and restored their numerous and suspicious train excluded,
him to the custody of the Chancellor in the Castle Towards the close of the entertainment a black
of Edinburgh. . Under the guidance of the Bishops bull's head — an ancient Scottish symbol that some
of Moray and Aberdeen, then resident in the city, one was doomed to death— was suddenly placed
a conference was held in the church of St. Giles, upon the board. The brave boys sprang up, and
making him and his rival joint guardians, which, drew their swords ; but a band of Crichton’s
from their mutual dread and hatred of the Earl of vassals, in complete armour, rushed in from a
Douglas, led to an amicable arrangement, and the chamber called the Tiring-house, and dragged
young king chose the Castle as his future place of forth the three guests, despite the tears and en-
residence. treaties of the young king.

The great house of Douglas had now reached They were immediately beheaded — on the 24th
the zenith of its baronial power and pride. The of November, 1440— according to Godscroft, “in
earl possessed Annandale, Galloway, and other ex- the back court of the Castle that lyeth to the west*
tensive dominions in the southern counties, where (where the barracks now stand) ; in the great
aU men bowed to his authority. He had the hall, according to Balfour. They were buried in
dukedom of Touraine and lordship of Longueville the fortress, and when, in 1753, some workmen, in
in France. He was allied to the royal family of digging a foundation there, found the plate and
Scotland, and had at his back a powerful force of handles of a coffin all of which were pure gold,
devoted vassals, trained to arms, led by brave they were supposed to belong to that in which
knights, who were ripe at all times for revolt and the Earl of Douglas was placed. Singular to say,
strife. Crichton was never brought to trial for this terrible

“ The Regent and the Chancellor are both alike outrage. “Venomous viper!” exclaims the old
tome ,* 1 said he, scornfully; * *ris no matter which historian of the Douglases, “that could hide so
may overcome, and if both perish the country deadly poyson under so fane showes ! unworthy
win be the berier ; and it is a pleasant sight for tongue, undesse to be cut oute for example to all
hottest foen to see swkfrtoerf yoked together.” ages*! A lion or tiger for crufdty of heart— & waspe
, But soon after rise potent Douglas died at or spider for spight!” He also refers to a rude
PMafaig-< 4 a June, t44o~-ai»d was succeeded by ballad on the subject, beginning—

“ Edinburgh Castle, towne and tower,

God grant thou sinke for sinne,

An that even for the black dinner
Earle Douglas got therein.”

This affair, instead of pacifying the country, only
led to ruin and civil strife. The Douglas took arms
under James, fourth Duke of Touraine and seventh
Earl of Douglas and Angus, and for a long space the
city and neighbourhood were the scene of contest
and ravage by the opposite factions. The Chancellor
• remained secure in the Castle, and, to be revenged
on Sir John Forrester, who had laid waste his lands
at Crichton in 1445, he issued forth with his
troopers and garrison, and gave to fire and sword
all the fertile estates of the Douglases and For-
resters westward of the city, including Blackness,
Abercom, Strathbroc, and Corstorphine ; and, with
other pillage, carrying off a famous breed of
Flanders mares, he returned to his eyry.

Douglas, who, to consolidate his power had
espoused his cousm the Fair Maid of Galloway,
adding thus her vast estates to his own, and had now,
as hereditary lieutenant-general of the kingdom,
obtained the custody of the young king, came to
Edinburgh with a vast force composed of the
Crown vassals *nd his own, and laid siege to the
Castle, which the Chancellor defended for nine
months, nor did he surrender even to a summons
sent in the king’s name till he had first secured
satisfactory terms for himself; while of his less

scarcely a trace of which now tibe

picturesque old ruin known
Tower, at the base of the Castle Thqrrax)
along the southern declivity of the on which
the most ancient parts of the town wM built, and
after crossing the West Bo w -^ttkmdeemed the
grand entrance to Edinbui^h--- 4 M^iktween the
| High Street and the hollow, where tne Cowgate
(which exhibited then but a few minor edifices) now
stands ; they then crossed the main ridge at die
{ Nether Bow. and terminated at the east end ot
! the North Loch, which was then fdnned as a
' defence on the north, and in the construction of
| which the Royal Gardens were sacrificed. From
' this line of defence the entire esplanade of the
I Castle was excluded. “ Within these ancient
'limits,” says Wilson, “the Scottish capital must
have possessed peculiar means of defeskte— a city
set on a hill and guarded by the rocky fortress,
there watching high the least alarms ; it only
wanted such ramparts, manned by its burgher
watch, to enable it to give protection to its princes
I and to repel the inroads of the southern invader.

| The important position which it now held may be
inferred from the investment in the following year
of Patrick Cockbum of Newbigging (the Provost
of Edinburgh) in the Chancellor’s office as governor
of the Castle, as well as his appointment, along
, with other commissioners, after the great defeat ol
' the English at the battle of Sark, to treat for the

fortunate coadjutors, some only redeemed their | renewal of a truce.” It seemed then to be always
lives with their estates, and the others, including “ truce ” and never peace 1
three members of the Livingstone family, were In the Parliament of 1455 wc find Acts passed
beheaded within its walls. for watching the fords of the Tweed, and the

The details of this long siege are unknown, but erection of bale-fires to give alarm, by day and
to render the investment more secure the Parlia- night, of inroads from England, to warn Hume,
tnent, which had begun its sittings at Perth, was Haddington, Dunbar, Dalkeith, Eggcrhope, and
removed to Edinburgh on the 15th of July, 1446. Edinburgh Castle, thence to Stirling and the north
After all this, Earl Douglas visited Italy, and in — arrangements which would bring all Scotland
bis absence during the jubilee at Rome in 1450, under arms in two hours, as the same tystcot did
Crichton contrived to regain the favour of James at the time of the False Alarm in 1803. One
II., who having now the government in his own bale-fire was a signal that the English went in
hands, naturally beheld with dread the vast power ( motion ; two that they were advancing; four in a
of the house of Touraine. row signified that they were in great strength* All

How Douglas perished under the king's dagger ! men in arms westward of Edinburgh tew to
in Stirling in 1452 is a matter of general history, j muster there; all eastward at Haddington; and
His rival died at a very old age, three years every Englishman caught in Scotland was lawfblly
•afterwards, and was interred among his race in the prisoner of whoever took him /Acts, isth Pari*
the present noble church of Crichton, which he James II.). But the engendered 'bate and Jcalontf
founded. of England would seem to have nearly reached its

Beneath the Castle ramparts the rising city was culminating point when the nth Fariiamcpt cf
now fast increasing; and in 1450, after the battle J James VI., chap. 104, enacted, nngall a rtt ly,

■of Sark,, jn which Douglas Earl of Ormon^ de* no Scotsman m*rrt6 an Englishwoman without Hit
feated the English with great slaughter, it was ting's license under the Great Seal, ttnohr pern hi
•deemed necessary to enclose the city by walls, death and eacbeat of morablci*

THE ROYAL LODGING OR PALACF, FROM THE GRAND PARADE.

CHAPTER V.

EDINBURGH CASTLE-(^W).

James III. and Us haughty Nobility— Plots of the Duke of Albany ana Earl of Mar— Mysterious Death of Mar — Capture and Escape of the Duke
of Albany— Captivity of James III —Richard of Gloucester at Edinburgh— The “Golden Charter" of the pity—' “The Blue Blanket”
— Acc es sion of James IV —Tournaments— “ The Seven Sisters of Bothwu.lt * —The " Flodden Wall ’ —The Reign of James V — “ Cleanse
the Causeway ' "— Edinburgh under the Factions of Nobles— Hertford Attacks the Cattle— Death of Mary of Guise— Queen Mary's
Apartments in the Castle— Birth of James VI

Arm the royal marriage and coronation of than once; he slew John of Scougal in East
James III, with Margaret of Oldenburg — both of Lothian , and surrounded himself with a band of
which ceremonies took place with great pomp at desperadoes, who at his behest executed the most
Edinburgh in 1476, he unfortunately contrived to nefarious crimes.

dtsgglt his proud nobility by receiving into favour The dark accusations under which he lay roused
many persons of inferior rank. Thus, deep and at length the suspicions of the king, who ordered
dangerous intrigues were formed against him, and the arrest of both him ^ Mar. Over the latter’s
by th os e minions he was soon made aware that his fate there hangs a strange mystery. One his-i
brothers — Alexander Duke of Albany, and John torian declares that he died fever in the CanonJ
Earl of Mar— were forming a conspiracy against gate, under the spells of Wittfyes who were bu xnedt
Mm, end that the former aimed at nothing less than therefor. Another records ‘ that he was bled tm
westing the sceptre from his hand, and getting death in Craigmillar <^S*4*nd the singular dim
himself; with English aid, crowned as Alexander covery these in 1818 of a fatfxTjf skeleton built erecx

I&tgtif%odandan4tte into the north wall was%aqgfat to warrant d#

tyml document* adoption of the last accoutif

> AoadoT osogfoping t% ?athority as Warden of In 148s Albany was eft ntted to dm Caaft
Ifodjhiee he dm sgvdrits of outrage^ Alb a ny of Bduhedi a dose iinwr in die hands n
ApPtW dn dptf ton* into Englid mm dm* whs knew weB that j&acceiskm to- p

CtattkJ

ALBANY’S ESCAPE

throne would ensure their total destruction, yet
he escaped them. Aware that a day of trial was
coming, and terrified by the unknown &te of <Mar,
some of his numerous friends contrived to acquaint
him that in the Roads of Leith there lay a «hi«h
vessel laden with Gascon wine, by which he might

aad abo a strong repo, with mB

endodng an nnagn cd tet*r, he

durald lose no time in ak At ktygfc

minions had tesolved that he should die ere tie
morrow's sun set," bat that the boats of the french
vessel would await him at the harbour h^Lefth.

EDINBURGH CASTLE IN 1647. {Frtm Cordon
«, the Gutle, b, the Cattle ChapeL

escape if he made an effort It is supposed that To lull suspicion, Albany invited die captain of
he was confined in David’s Tower, for we are told the guard and three of his principal soldiers to sup
it was one that arose from die northern verge of with him, and all these he succ eed ed in partial],
the rod, where die height of the precipice seemed intoxicating. The, sat drinking mid g a ming M
to preclude die ponbOit, of escape. He had the hour grew late; and than die rojral duke bad
bt one attendant (styled his chalmer-chield) left that die moment of fate had come I
to wait upon him, and to dus follower he revealed Snatching the captain's long dagger 4mm IB
U> intenti o n . Trim the vessel there came to baldrick, Albany buried it again and apm in lit
him two 'small nudeta said to contain wine; and glittering breast; be despatched the Koskatod
they wa c arrie d ta }m apartment metminai, sdUBen ha dm same Adrian, and, in toftwa Uf Mi
The duke found that die, contained malvoisM, hotdlity, with dm ssriatanrr of |k rhlhaatahMi
P

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

Inter

%gm the bodies on a great fire England for aid against his turbulent barons, and
In Ibp fireplace of the tower ; “and Edward IV, (though they had quarrelled about a
jfc&r amour they broiled and sweltered matrimonial alliance, and about die restoration of
In iron shells.” Locking the doors, Berwick) sent Richard, Duke of Gloucester, north,
hurriedly and stealthily reached the at the head of xo,ooo auxiliaries, who encamped
The attendant lowered him- on the Burghmuir, where the Duke of Albany, who
first over the abutting crag, which there is affected a show of loyalty, joined them, at the very
trite than 200 feet in height, but the cord proving time that the rebellious nobles of James were
«faort it slipped from his hands, and he fell to sitting in council in the Tolbooih. Thither went
the bottom senseless. Albany and Gloucester, the “ crookbacked Dick”

This must have been a terrible crisis for the of Shakspere and of Bosworth, attended by a
blood-stained Albany 1 Hurrying back to his now thousand gentlemen of both countries, and the
-horrible apartment in the tower, he dragged the parties having come to terms, heralds were sent to
sheets from his bed, added them to the rope, the Castle to charge the commander thereof to
looped it round an embrasure, and lowered himself open the gates and set the king at liberty ; after
safely down over rampart and rock to the bottom, which the royal brothers, over whose fratemisa-
where he found his attendant lying helpless, with a tion Pitscottie's narrative casts some ridicule, rode
broken thigh. Unwilling to leave him to perish, together, he adds, to Holyrood, “quhair they re-
Alt&ny, with a sentiment that contrasts singularly mained ane long time in great marines.”
with his recent ferocity, raised him on his shoul- William Bertraham, Provost of Edinburgh, with
ders, and being a man of unusual strength and the whole community of the city, undertook to
stature, he actually conveyed him to Leith, a dis- repay to the king of England the dowry of his
tance of two miles ; and, when the sun rose, the daughter the Lady Cecil, and afterwards they
ship, with Albany, was out on the German sea. fulfilled their obligations by repaying 6,000 merks
, Daylight revealed the rope and twisted sheets to the Garter King-at-Arms. In acknowledgment
hanging over the rampart of the tower. An alarm of this loyal service James granted to the city* the
Was given, which the dreadful stench from the patent known as its “ Golden Charter,” by wjbiph
locked chsunber must have increased. The door the provost and bailies were created sheriffs of
was opened. Albany was gone, but the half-con- their own boundaries, with other important privi-
stuned corpses were found in the fireplace ; and leges. Upon the craftsmen he also Conferred a
James III. refused to believe in a story so incre- banner, said to have been made by the queen and

dible till he had visited the' place in person.*

her ladies, still preserved and known popularly as

Albany fled to England, the king of which re- the “ Blue Blanket,” and it was long the rallying
fused to deliver him up. Thus war was declared, point of the Burgher-guard in every war or civic
and James marched from the Burghmuir with broil. Thus, James VI , in the “ Basilicon Doron,”
50,000 men and a train of guns, under the master points out to Prince Henry — “ The craftsmen think
of the ordnance, a stone-mason, whom, with great we should be content with their work how bad
impolicy, he had created Earl of Mar. At Lauder soever it be ; and if in anything they be controuled,
the nobles halted ; hanged all' the king's minions up goes the Blue Blanket ! ”
over the bridge in ^horse-halters, and disbanded This banner, according to Kincaid, is of blue
the troops; and then the humbled and luckless silk, with a whitest Andrew's cross. It is swallow-
James returned to the Castle, where for many tailed, measuring in length from the pole ten feet
months, in 1481, he remained a species of prisoner two inches, and in breadth six and a half feet It
in the custody of its commanders, the Earls of bears a thistle crowned, with the mottoes: “Fear
A^ol and Buchan, who, it has been supposed, God and honour the King with a long lyffe and
would have murdered him in secret had not the a prosperous reigne ; " and “ And we that is Trades
Lord Damley and other loyal barons protected shall ever pray to be faithM for the defence of
him, by never leaving his chamber unguarded by his sacred Maiesties royal person till Death.”
night or day. There he remained in a species of James III. was noted about this time for the.
honourable .durance, while near him lay in a dun- quantity of treasure, armour, and cannon he had
geun the venerable Earl of Douglas, who scorned stored up in the Castle, has favourite residence,
it be reconciled, though James, in his humility, In David's Tower stoofihh frrnous Mack kxst
trite o v ert u rns tp him. He appealed at last to (probably die same which is now in die Crown

rooni)„£tted with me ullwd, gems, gold end
ritar ipecie, ssueh m ptafce, md * wototettl eiS

THE JOUSTmjfeBQXIWR

lection of glittering jewels, of which Tytler gives
the list In the “ inventory” of the Jewel House
are mentioned five relics of Robert Bruce, vis.,
four silver goblets and a shirt of mail, “King
Robert’s serk,” as it is written. Among his
cannon were two great French curtalds, forty-six
other pieces of various calibre, and sixteen field-
waggons, with a vast quantity of military stores of
every description.

The quarrels between James and his arrogant
nobles deepened day by day. At last, says Gods-
croft, a story went abroad that it was proposed
to invite them all to a banquet In the great hall
of the Castle, and there cut them off root and
branch 1 This startling rumour led to Others, and
all culminated in the battle of Sauchiebum, where
James perished, under the dagger of an assassin,
on the 8th of June, 1488 — a monarch who, more
than any other of the Stuarts, contributed towards
the permanent prosperity of the Scottish metro-
polis. “ By favour of his charters its local juris-
diction was left almost exclusively in the hands
of its own magistrates; on them were conferred
ample powers for enacting laws for its governance,
with authority in life and death— still vested in its
chief magistrate — an independence which was
afterwards defended amid many dangers down to
the period of the Union. By his charters, also in
their favour, they obtained the right, which they
still hold, to all the customs of the haven and
harbour of Leith, with the proprietorship of the
adjacent coast, and all the roads leading thereto.”

On the accession of James IV., in his boyhood,
he sent a herald from Leith to demand the sur-
render of the Castle, and a commission consisting
of the Lord High Treasurer, Sir William Knowles
(afterwards slain at Flodden), and others, took
over all the personal property of the late king.
The inventory taken on this occasion, according
to Tytler, affords a pleasing and favourable idea
of the splendour of the Scottish court in those
days.

In the treasurer’s accounts we have many curious
entries concerning the various Scottish harpers,
fiddlers, and English pipers, that performed here
to amuse James IV. “July xo, 1489; to Inglish
pyparis that cam to the Castel yet and playit to
the king, viij lib. viij s.”

During the reign of the chivalrous and splendid
Junes IV.— who was crowned at Kelso — Edin-
b®gh became celebrated throughout all Europe as
the scene o( knightly feats. The favourite place for
the rayal toumfencnts waa a spot of ground just
below the Castle rock, and near the kins’* fefta
not, James in particular, amembled the nobles by

prbdam&tkm. for temdsa sjgto

honour as a gSSided

favours, presented by baa own ha^ er thst of

acme beautiful woman. Knight* c*me from

countries to take part m these ‘joasta

says Pitscottie, “few or none of titHU* Fused

away unmatched, and oftimea overtit

One notable encounter, witnessed by t he
king from the Castle wall, took place in 150$
when a famous cavalier of the Low Countries
named by Pitscottie Sir John Cochbevis, chsb
lenged the best knight in Scotland 3 to break
a spear, or meet him d outranct in combat to
the death. Sir Patrick Hamilton of the house
of Arran took up his challenge. Amid a vast
concourse, they came to the barriers, lanced,
horsed, and clad in tempered mail, wfth their
emblazoned shields hung round their nodes. At
sound of trumpet they rushed to the shock, and
splintered their spears fairly. Fresh ones were
given them, but as Hamilton’s horse foiled him,
they drew their two-handed swords, and en-
countered on foot. They fought thus “for a full
hour, till the Dutchman being struck to the
ground,” the king cast his plumed bonnet over
the wall to stay the combat, while the heralds
and trumpeters proclaimed the Scottish knight
victorious.

But the court of James was distinguished for
other things than the science of war, for during
his brilliant reign Edinburgh became the resort of
men high in every department of science and
art; and the year 151a saw the Provost of St
Giles’s, Gavin Douglas, translating Virgil’s “iEnrid*
into Scottish verse.

In the Castle there resided, about 1503, Lady
Margaret Stuart, the daughter of James, by Mar-
garet Drummond of that ilk, whom he is said to
have married clandestinely, and who was removed
by some Scottish conspirators “to make wqjr
for a daughter of England,” as an old historian
has it She was poisoned, together with her ton
sisters; and in August, 1503, “the daughter of
England ” duly came m the person of Margaret
Tudor, whose marriage to James at Edinburgh
was conducted with great splendour and much
rejoicing.

In 15 09 James employed his master gunner,
Robert Borthwick, to cast a set/ of bras* end*
nance for the Castle, all of which were meerfbed
— MaMmmm, Sctto Jhrtkurkk JM f if i ftt, JMtri *
Seven of these were named by Jamra“lbrsistriiif
bring remarkable for their bemttyand mm. ;
wkk also cast within the Castle fee befi* fattfo*
haqg in the rsfhdnd of 8t Msg ran m Khfewrfl

1 1 1 1 a 1

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

m' 4l « preparing for his fttei invasion
“ irant <lnfly to the Castle to inspect and
iortiUery, and by the bursting of one of

■ pt narrowly escaped a terrible deads, like
gpifeich his grandfather, James II., perished
i^btzburgh. "The seven sisters of Bbrthwick,”
i^sred to by Scott in “Mannion,” were captured,
(he rest of the Scottish train, at Flodden,
Inhere the Earl of Surrey, when he saw them, said
there were no cannon so beautiful in the arsenals
of King Henry.

After the accession of James V., the Castle was

named the Forge and Gun House* homer Am-
munition House, die Register and Jewel House*
the Kitchen Tower, and .Royal Lodging contain-
ing the great hall (now a hospital). Westward
were die Butts, still so-called, where archery was
practised. There were, and are still, several deep
wells; and one at the base of the rock to the
northward, in a vault of the Well-house Tower,
between the west angle of wjiich and the rock was
an iron gate defended by loopholes closing the
path that led to St. Cuthbert’s church. A massive
rampart and two circular bastions washed by the

THE BLUE BLANKET, OR STANDARD OF THE INCORPORATED TRADES OF EDINBURGH.
( From the Trade y* Maiden's Hospital , Rillbank.)

improved by the skill of the royal architect, Sir
James Hamilton of Finnart, and greatly streng-
thened ; but its aspect was very different from that
which it bears now.

The entire summit of the stupendous rock was
crowned by a lofty wall, connecting a series of
round or square towers, defended by about thirty
pieces of cannon, called “ chambers,” which were
removed in 1540. Cut-throats, iron slangs, and
arquebuses, defended the parapets. Two tall edi-
fices, the Teel and Constable’s Towers connected
by a curtain, faced the city, overlooking the Spur,
a vast triangular ravelin, a species of lower castle
that covered all the summit of the hilL Its walls
were twenty feet high, tunreted at the angles, and

armed with cannon. The Constable’s Tower was
Wallace’s Tower, a little below it,
L 8t Margaret’s Tower and

v wa to Inferred to. The othjrs

abutted on the socks were respectively

loch, defended the keep of the ravelin on that side,
where Sir Patrick „ Jilackadder was slain by the
Douglases in 152^ when attempting to swim his
charger across to escape their lances and hackbuts.
In May, 1820, when a drain was being dug here,
a coffin was found containing an entire skeleton,
near it lay the skull of another. The treasurer’s
accounts show the strength of the garrison in the
following year, when the comptroller was ordered
to provide for 400 soldiers in “ Ed“ Castell, for
keeping the samyn frae Inglishmen.” There are
seldom more there now, in the reign of Victoria.

In tracing the history of this fortress at is im-
possible not to refer occasionally to the city of
which it was the origin before coming to the
general annals of the latter. The defeat at
Flodden on the 9th of September, 1513, caused
a consternation in Edinburgh unusual even in
those days of war and tumult. The wail that
went through the streets is still remembered in

OLD AMD MEW IDP ftWtWi Bt

muI n song. Professor Aytous
g£igti die fce iia g languish in his
|j£ of * Edinburgh after Flodden *

and hmentatioD, what a piteous «jf was

mothers, children ahneking totting to

before!

S>b f our king, the good, the nobler shall we never see him
more?

Woe to us, and woe to Scotland 1 Oh, our eons, our sons
and men !

Surely some have ’scaped the Southron, surely some will
come again I*

TOl the ask that fell last winter shall uprear its withered

■ - - — ^ 1 ^l!!faa g t gg ^>

a. *—\i — <»uitiich m ha* Mfr MdntvQS|NlrtUi HSlMltotiltMdie

I Bow Port Sw cadoaan m coMeted v. ^
•fak of 8t Unfa WTwUodpS^ *
I of the oM waS of 145a Dmdny Left
[which wee oho doced hr * port, &e wall ended

* I at the foot of the North loch, that, at yet, tin

toioaJ^Titeets the death-word rtuhet, spreading terror, j gitiScuI defence of the dty on that aide, the Waters
sweeping oa — \ of it befog regulated by a dam and aloice. These

<mrk ! asbt * &Uea -° b> 004 ^ walls were added to and strengthened fom time to

Oh, ttebbdtoMty for Scotland that she ever knew/ time as suspicions occurred of the English: at Leith

Wynd by Act of Parliament in 1540; another addi-
tion in 7560 to the foot of Halkcrston’s Wynd, near
the present North Bridge; and in 1591 all were
repaired with bulwarks and flankers; the last
addition being, in 1618, at the Greyfriais Port
They had all become ruinous in 1745. The
whole length of the old wall was about one mile,
that of the new was one mile three furlongs.

Henry VIIL was too full of his French war to
follow up the advantage won at Flodden; and
poor Scotland had now to experience again the
evils that attend a long minority, for James V.
was but two years old when he succeeded to the
throne.

By the will of James IV. Queen Margaret was
appointed Regent during their son’s minority ; but
she lost her power by an impolitic marriage with
the Earl of Angus, whereupon John Duke of Al-
bany succeeded her as Regent This brave and
wise prince was the son of that Alexander whose
daring escape we have detailed, and he had high
interest in France, where he espoused Anne de la
Tour of Vendome ; but pnor to his arrival there
had ensued one of those dreadful street skirmishes
which were so peculiar to Edinburgh in those
days.

On the queen’s marriage with his feudal rival,
the Earl of Arran, attended by every Hamilton he
could muster, marched into the city, and laid
claim to the Regency, afi nearest of blood to the
king. Angus was not slow in following him
thither, with 500 spearmen and several knights.
The moment that Arran heard of his approach,
he assembled the nobility of the west country, at
the Archbishop of Glasgow’s quaint old turrefced
house, which stood at the eastern comer of the
Bl&ckfriars Wynd, but has quite recently been
pulled down. He ordered the gates to be secured,
but too late ; the Douglases were already in the
city, where a dreadful <

While Anan held a conference, Angus 1
his town mansion, near the curious old
called the West Bow, die felt vestiges of which
have nearly disappeared. Sis

Wives and mothers of Dunedin ye may look in vain for them !*'

All the remaining mole inhabitants capable of bear-
ing anus were ordered to be in readiness ; a standing
watdt (the origin of the famous old Town Guard)
was constituted, and five hundred pounds Scots
were even levied for the purchase of artillery. The
narrow limits of the wall of James II. had proved
tog confined for the increasing city, and now that
there was dread of a retaliatory invasion by a
victorious enemy, the inhabitants of the Cow-
gatte — then a new and aristocratic suburb — became
naturally alarmed to find they were beyond the
dicumvaOation of 1450. They felt themselves shut
out in die unprotected country 1 “ But they — the
citizens— did certainly retain their native character
for prudence, as scarcely a house arose beyond
the second wall for 250 years ; and if Edinburgh
increased in any respect, it was only by piling new
flats on the ancient royalty, and adding to the
height rather than to the extent of the city.”
Several traces of the%“ Flodden Wall,” as it was
named, still exist

This defence, which was built with incredible
speed, had many gates and towers, crenelated and
furnished 4 rith embrasures and loopholes, and
was of vast strength and height, with a terrepldne
of earth hi some parts, especially to the south.
Descending- from the Castle in a south-westerly
direction, it crossed the Portsburgh at the foot of
rite GraSsmaiket, where there was a barrier called
the Wert Port $ end ascending the steep Vennel —
where epoch of it still remains — to Lauriston, it
honed doe eertwaid to the oomer of Teriot Row,
fee whence it sen ecutely porthwerd to &e

Balt '’Tame it na nauljr fcMtwmrd by the

- -

waumm tfl* causewav*

to him an mt m m tkm that be ww to be amde
prisoner, and advised bias to lose no time in
assuming die defensive. On this he sent his unde,
the 'fiunous Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkdd,
to remonstrate with the archbishop, Arran, and
others present, “to caution them against violence,
and to inform them that if they had anything to
allege against him he would be judged by the laws
of the realm, and not by men who were his avowed
enemies." Meanwhile he put on his armour, and
drew tip his spearmen in dose array near the
Nether-Bow Port— the Temple Bar of Edinburgh |
—a gate strongly fortified by double towers.

When the Bishop of Dunkeld entered the arch-
bishop’s house in the Blackfriars Wynd he found
all present armed, and resolved on the most despe-
rate measures. Even the archbishop wore a coat
of mail, covered by his ecclesiastical costume, and
in the dispute that ensued he conduded a vehe-
ment speech by striking his breast, and asseverat-
ing — “ There is no remedy ! The Earl of Angus
must go to prison. Upon my conscience I cannot
help it ! ”

As he struck his breast the armour rattled.

“ How now, my lord ? " said the Bishop of Dun-
keld; “I think your conscience clatters! We
are priests, and to bear arms or armour is not
consistent with our profession.”

The archbishop explained “ that he had merely
provided for his own safety in these days of con-
tinued turmoil, when no man could leave his house
but at the hazard of his life.”

Numbers of citizens and others had now joined
Angus, who was exceedingly popular, and the people
handed weapons from the windows to all his fol-
lowers who required them. He barricaded all the
entrances to the steep wynds and closes leading from
the High Street to the Cowgate, and took post
himself near the head of the Blackfriars Wynd.
Sir James Hamilton of Finnart came rushing up-
ward at the head of the Hamiltons to attack the
Douglases. Angus, who knew him, ordered the
latter to spare him if possible, but be was one
of the first who perished in the fierce and bloody
fi^y that ensued, and involved the whole city in
universal uproar.

“A Douglas! a Douglas!” “A Hamilton! a
Hamilton 1 Through 1 Through 1 " such wetfe the
adverse cries.

The many windows of die lofty and gable-ended
houses of die High Street were crowded with the
racked fimm of apectaton; dm clash of swords and
cnrh of pikes, the shouts, yeH% and execrations
of rife combatants as they dosed in fierce confct,

muftded begun tomnbcr

direction.

The Hamiltons gave way, xnd^amft
the exasperated Angus dune them hsedbgg uttyM )
the Biackfiri in Wynd, kfl&Qg them on I ritty hit
The Earl of Arran and a hewed a paNri^K

out of the mtoh, and fled down an a Hey on dm north
side of the High Street At the toot they found
a collier's horse, and, throwing the b ur de n off dm
a nim a l , both mounted it though in aanouty swam
it across the loch to the other tide, and escaped
I among the fields, where now Princes Street standi

Many Douglases perished in the skirmish, which
was long remembered as “Cleanse the Causeway.*
Of the Hamiltons eighty were slam on the spot
including Sir Patrick son of the first Lord Hand*
ton, and the Master of Montgomery, according th
Hawthornden. The archbishop fled J0 dm ad-
jacent Blackfriars church for sanctuary, but the
Douglases dragged him from behind the a itan
rent his episcopal habit from his back, end would
have slain him had not the Bishop of Dunkdd
interfered ; and he was permitted tq fly afoot to
Linlithgow, sixteen miles distant.

Towards the termination of^the fight floe border
troopers, under the Prior of Coldingham (Angus’s
brother), came galloping in, and finding the gate#
and wickets dosed, they beat them in with has*
mere ; but by that time the fray was over.

This was but a specimen of the misrule dug
pervaded the whole realm till the arrival of th#
Regent Albany, when the Parliament at Edinbuifh
named four peers as guardians of the young king
and his infant brother, permitting the queen to namt
other four. On this being adjusted, the Duke Of
Albany and these peers in their robes of atatt|
attended by esquires and pages, proceeded to the
Castle, at the gate of which they were received by
a singular tableau of an imposing description.

The barriers were thrown open, and OO die
summit of the flight of forty steps which then gave
access to them, stood the beautiful queen of that
I heroic king who fell at Flodden, holding by the
hand the little James V., while a pace or'twfk
behind her stood a noble lady, supporting jn far
arms his infant brother. With ml of affected
sweetness of manner she asked their errand.

“Madam," replied the royal duke, “we mm
by die authority of Parliament receive at yaw
hands our sovereign and his beotbect*

Margaret Tudor stepped back a pace,
ordered the portcullis to be lowered, and as ti*
goring descended riowty between her aqd ^e febr
driesates. she said s~—

/Tlho»d thaCMtlft by

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

ad&yjfod it to no power whatever, her brother, Henry VIIL, by complaining that she
font x£ the Parliament, and require had been little else than a captive in the Cattle of
jCOaaidar its demand; for most impor- Edinburgh.

charge, and my councillors, alas 1 are Meanwhile the Duke of Albany had taken up
^he v^h#h | bursting into tears, probably his residence at Holyrood, and seems to have pro*
of the many ceeded, between 1515-16, with the enlargement of

mo on Flodden’s trampled sod, the royal buildings attached to the Abbey House,

For tfaeir king and for their country, in continuation of the works carried on there by

Rendered up their souls to God.” the late king, till the day of Floddem Throughout

mo on Flodden’s trampled sod,

For their king and for their country,
Rendered up their souls to God.”

Alarmed at a refusal so daring, Angus entreated I the minority of James V. Edinburgh continued to

Loot tower of
Wull remaxnte

/y INFERENCES \ I

f 1 Wut Port 4 Potterrow Port V
t The Veimei 8 Oowpate Port \\
• Society Port 8 Vethwrbow Port 11

Ji

Meet H uZrUim eS/nekutiimMlr

\ llerxotB Horpital

PLAN OF EDINBURGH, SHOWING THE FLODDKN WALL. (Bmeeti on Gordon oj Rotktemay'x Maf, 1647 .)

her to obey the Estates, and took an instrument
to the effect that he had no share in it ; but she
remained inexorable, and the mortified delegates
returned to report the unsuccessful issue of their
fffruinn. Aware that she was unable to contend
with the Estates, die secretly retired with her sons
to Stirling and, after placing them in charge of the
Lords Barthwick and Fleming, returned to her
former residence, though, according to Chalmers,
the had no right of dowry therein. Distrusting the
pedpl* and, as a Tudor, distrusted by them, die
remained aloof from all, untfl one day, escorted
by told Home and fifty tappes, -foe suddenly rode
m the Quote of Blackadder (near Berwick), from
imndklfoMcumd fro maaMifr else wysogwdby ssC

be disturbed by the armed contentions of the
nobles, especially those of Angus and Arran ; and
in a slender endeavour to repress this spirit the
salary of the Provost was augmented, and a small
guard of halberdiers was appointed to attend him.

Among foftye committed prisoners to the Castle
by Albany were the Lord Home and his brother
William jfigr treason ; they escaped, but were re-
taken, and treaded 16th October, 1516, and
their placed on theTolbooth.* Hundy

and MarMityb next prisoners, for fighting at the
head of tehiads in foe streets ; and foe next
was Sir for an aimed bowl

VRBIS EDIK/E LATV5 SEPTENTRIONAUE
3ht 9*rrfpfft tflheMirlhJyk £t&ttbruyh.

ruu>uii*cutfe.

O LD AND NEW EDINBURGH .

Ilp^ had been paying bis addresses to a girl others came in his train to Holyrood, that Angus,
mEp^I Of great attractions, daughter of Richard who had quarrelled with Margaret, and was the
ISSuMOf the Highriggs, Provost in 1504 (and sworn foe of them all, quitted the city, and was
bouse there was removed only in 1878), exiled for tumults he had excited during the
mt^tfOving less successful than Meldrum of the absence ot the Regent As the only means of
- ■ whose feats of chivalry have been sung terminating the frightful anarchy that prevailed, it
J0 IJndesay of the Mount— he attacked the latter was resolved to invest James, now in his twelfth
it the head of fifty horse, near the Rood Chapel year, with full sovereign power; and thus, on the
in Leith Loan, though his rival had only eight fol- 22nd August, 1524, he made his solemn entry into
lowers, and a mortal combat with sword and axe the Tolbooth, preceded by the crown, sceptre, and
ensued. Meldrum unhorsed Sir Lewis, and would sword of state.

have slain him had not his faithful henchman, by The irrepressible Angus, backed by the Doug-
interposing, received the sword-thrust in his own lases, seized the government in the following year,
heart The prowess of Meldrum’s troopers is scaled the city walls on the night of the 24th
evinced from the fact that they slew twenty-six of November, beat open the ports, and fairly cap-
Stirling’s men, but the former was left for dead, turing Edinburgh, made a Douglas Provost thereof,
covered with wounds ; “ yet,’’ saith Pitscottie, “be And such was the power he possessed, that the
the mychtie power of God he escaped death, and assassins of M'Lellan of Bombie — who was slain
lived fiftie years thairaftir.” The Chevalier de la in open day at the door of St. Giles's church —
Beaut^, the detested Lieutenant-Governor under walked with impunity about the streets ; while the
Albany, at the head of the mounted French gen- queen herself deemed his safe-conduct necessary
darmerie, pursued Stirling to the Peel of Linlith- while she resided in Edinburgh, though Parliament
gow. He stormed it, and sent this fiery lover to was sitting at the time ; and so the king returned
the Castle of Edinburgh, where he was sentenced again to honourable durance in the dilapidated
to death, but was pardoned and set free, while palace of the Castle, or only put in an appearance
the chevalier was soon after slain by Home of to act as the puppet Of his governor.

Wedderbum, who knitted his head to his saddle At this crisis Arran and his faction demanded
bow. that Parliament should assemble in the Castle-hall

During this time little James V. resided perma- as a security against coercion ; but Angus vowed
nently in the Castle, pursuing his studies under the that it should continue to meet in its usual place ;
tuition of Gawin Dunbar, afterwards Archbishop and as the king was retained within the Castle, he
of Glasgow, all .unconscious of the turmoils in pro- cut off all communication between it and the city
gress everywhere, and so completely forgotten by with 2,000 men, on whom the batteries opened ,
die actors in them, that his sister, the Countess but eventually these differences were adjusted, and
of Morton, with her friends, had, more than once, the luckless young king was permitted to attend
to repair the roy^l apartments and replenish his Parliament in state

wardrobe.' Though placed in the fortress for On All Saints’ Day a thunderbolt struck a turret
security, he was permitted to ride abroad on a of David’s Tower, and hurled some fragments down
little mule that was kept for his use, but always the rocks, setting fire to the apartments of Margaret,
under escort of Albany’s guards, clad in scarlet who narrowly escaped with her life,
doublets slashed with black, and armed with In 1526, John. Earl' of Lennox, at the head of
partisan and dagger. Dread of a pestilence which numerous forces, marched towards Edinburgh,
broke out in the garrison caused his removal to intent on rescuing the king from the intolerable
Oraigmilfer, where, by the courtesy of Lord thraldom of Angus; but the latter caused his
Exukine, his mother was permitted to visit him, namesake the Provost to ring the alarm bell,
till the other guardians, hostile to English influ- display the banner of the city, and put it on its
ence and suspicious of her power, removed him to defence. He did more. He compelled James to
his former residence. James is said to have de- lead out the citizens against his own friends. He
lighted in conversing with the soldiers, and when issued forth by the West Port, at the head of
handling their swords and hackbuts his cheeks all the men $f Edinburgh and Leith, but came in
were teen to flush and his eyes to sparkle with the time only to witness the death of Lennox in the
ardour of a brave bog when contemplating military battle of Linlithgow Bridge, where he was cruelly
object*. f slain by Sir Jama H a milt o n , after he had sur-

Wtaen Albany returned tom visiting Fiance, jn rendered his sword to die Lurd of Pardowie.

<hn qustn riawgflr, Beat o n, and so many Quean Margaret, who had now divorced Angus,

Edinburgh Castle.]

HERTFORD'S INVASIONS.

and married Henry Stuart Lord Methven, on
finding that the former was about to seize her
dower-lands, fled, with her third husband and all
his vassals, to the Castle of Edinburgh, and, joining
her son, prepared to resist to the last; but Earl
Archibald only laughed when he heard of it ; and,
displaying his banner, invested the fortress at the
head of his own vassals and those of the Crown.
Margaret found that she dared not disobey, and
•her soldiers capitulated.

’ .Bathed in tears, on her knees, at the outer gate,
quailing under the grim eye of one who was so
recently her husband, at his command she placed
the keys “ in the hands of her son, then a tall and
handsome youth, imploring pardon for her husband,
for his brother Sir James Stuart, and lastly for
herself. Angus smiled scornfully beneath his barred
helmet at her constrained submission, and haughtily
directed the Lord Methven and others to be im-
prisoned in the towers from which they had so
lately defied him.”

In 1528, James, at last, by a midnight flight with
only two attendants, escaped the Douglas thrall,
and fled to Falkland Palace, after which event, with
a decision beyond his years, he proceeded to assert
lus ow r n authority, and summoned the estates to
meet him at Stirling. The Douglases were de-
< lared outlaws and traitors, whereupon Angus and
all the barons of his name fled to England.

On the death of James V., in 1542, the Regent
Arran thoroughly repaired the Castle, and appointed
governor Sir James Hamilton of Stanehouse, a gal-
lant soldier, who proved worthy of the trust reposed
in him when, in 1544, Henry VIII., exasperated at
the Scots for declining to fulfil a treaty, made by an
English faction, affiancing the young Queen Mary
to his only son Edward, sent the Karl of Hertford
with an army, and 200 sail under Dudley Lord
I’lsle to the Forth, with orders, so characteristic of
a ferocious despot, 11 to put all to fire and sword ; to
bum Edinburgh, raze, deface, and sack it ; to beat
down and overthrow the Castle ; to sack Holyrood
and as many towns and villages as he could ; to
sack Leith, burn, and subvert it, and all the rest ;
putting man, woman, and child, to fire and sword,
without exception.”*

Hertford suddenly landed with 10,000 men near
an old fortalice, called the Castle of Wardie, on
the beach that bordered a desolate moor of the
same name, and seized Leith and Newhaven.
Cardinal Beaton and the Regent Arran lay in the
vicinity with an army. The former proposed bat-
tie, but the latter, an irresolute man, declined, and *

retired in the night towards T iiiKlhgjliiuilli his
hastily levied troops.

Lord Evers, with 4,000 hone, had now joined
the English from Berwick, and Hertford arrogantly
demanded the instant surrender of the in&ttt
queen ; and being informed that thenation would
perish to a man rather than submit to terms so
ignominious, he advanced against Edinburgh, from
whence came the Provost, Sir Adam Ottcrbum, to
make terms, if possible ; but Hertford would have
nothing save a v unconditional surrender of life and
property, together with the little queefc, then at
Stirling.

“ Then,” said the Provost, “ ’twere better that
the city should stand on it9 defence! 11 He
galloped back to put himself at the head of the
citizens, who were in arms under the Blue Blanket
The English, after being repulsed with Idas at the
Leith Wynd Port, entered by the Water Gate,
advanced up the Canongate to the Nether Bow
Port, which they blew open by dint of artillery, and
a terrible slaughter of the citizens ensued. All re-
sisted manfully. Among others was one named
David Halkerston of Ilalkerston, who defended
the wynd that for 300 years ,bore his name, and
perished there sword in hand. Spreading through
the city like a flood, the English fired it in eight
places, and as the High Street was then encumbered
with heavy fronts of ornamented timber that ent had
grown in the forest of Drumsheugh, the smoke of
the blazing mansions actually drove the invaders
out to ravage the adjacent country, prior to which
they met with a terrible repulse in an attempt
to attack the Castle. Four days Hertford toiled
before it, till he had 500 men killed, an incredible
number wounded, and some of his guns dismounted
by the fire of the garrison. Led by Stanehouse,
the Scots made a sortie, scoured the Castle hill,
and carried off Hertford’s guns, among which
were some that they had lost at Flodden. The
English then retreated, leaving Edinburgh nearly
one mass of blackened ruin, and the whole cpunftiy
burned and wasted for seven miles around it
When, three years after, the same unscrupulous
leader, as Duke of Somerset, won that disastrous’
battle at Pinkie— a field that made 360 women of
Edinburgh widows, and where the united shout
raised by the victors as they came storming over
Edmondston Edge was long remembered— Stane*
house was again summoned to surrender; but
though menaced by 26,000 of the English,, he
maintained his charge till the retreat of S om e r set
Instead of reconciling the Scots to m a ffi a n ce
with England— in those days a meM m 0 Bm
unsafe and unpalatable-all this sueugihflfcftl Urn

Tytfer.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Edinburgh Guile.

”fV — — —

MO/Mbm «*** Fiance. So fheir young queen was 1
llUijlrtii il to tiie Dauphin, and 6,000 French
ugUttties came to strengthen the power of Mary
%T Gtnse, widow of James V., who was appointed
fa ring the minority of her infant daughter.
fS Zfo g die year 1545-6, the Castle was for a brief
period the scene of George Wishart's captivity.

Maxy of Guise was imprudent, and disgusted the
haughty nobles by bestowing all places of trust
upon Frenchmen, and their military insolence soon
roused the rage of the people, who were at all

sword in hand, and the ports closed upon them
and well guarded.

On March 28, 1559, Mary of Guise, with a
sorely diminished court, took up her residence in
the fortress ; she was received with every respect
by Lord Erskine, who, as the holder of the Queen’s
garrison, was strictly neutral between the contend-
ing parties. The Reformers were now in arms with
the English auxiliaries, so the French, who had
waged war through all Fife and the Lothians, were
compelled to keep within the ramparts of Leith,

JOHN DUKE OP ALBANY, AND QUEEN MARGARET • (From a Pictnr* in pollution, of Hu Marquis if Bute )

times impatient of restraint. Thus fierce brawls |
ensued, and one of these occurred in the city in
1554, between an armourer and a French soldier ;
a quarrel having arisen concerning some repairs on
the wheel-lock of an arquebuse, the latter, by one
blow of his dagger, struck the former dead in his
own shop. The craftsmen flew to arms; the
soldier was joined and rescued by his countrymen ;
and a desperate conflict ensued with swords, pikes,
and Jedwood axes. Sir James Hamilton of Stane-
^otise, who was now Provost of the city as well as
gover no r of die Castle, marched at once to aid the
orisons. He was shun in the and left lying
mjto mmtimj , togethw with Ms son Junes tad
fill iJn~Ti j but lb* French ware driven ant

the operations against which the fair Regent, though
labouring under a mortal illness, which the cares of
state had aggravated, watched daily from the summit
of David’s Tower. Her illness, a virulent dropsical
affection, increased. She did not live to see the
fall of Leith, but died on the xoth of June, 1560.
Her death-bed was peaceful and affecting, and by
her own desire she was attended by Knox’s parti-
cular friend, John Willox, an active preacher of
the Reformation. Around her bed she called the

* Pinkerton is of opbaoa th*t tbi* point*
directed at the btrigwe of tbe pamoae daf
the Queen iebeUevedte be that of a Scott <

; m a apache of entire
ted. The Sgwe behind

Edinburgh Castle.]

great leaders of that movement, and with cold and
hard hostility they gazed upon her wasted but once
beautiful features, as she conjured them in moving
terms to be loyal men and true to Mary, the girl-
queen of Scotland and of France, and touchingly
she implored the forgiveness of all. The apart-
ment in which she expired is one of those in the
royal lodging, within the present half - moon
battery. The rites of burial were denied her
body, and it lay in the Castle lapped in lead till

4S

she had “ eleven tapestries of gilded leather; tight
of the ‘Judgment of Paris'; five of the ‘Triumph of
Virtue ’ ; eight of green velvet brocaded with great
trees bearing armorial shields and holly branches;
ten of cloth of gold and brocaded ; thirty
more of massive cloth of gold, one bearing the
story of the Count de Foix, eight bearing the
ducal arms of Longueville, five having the history
of King Rehoboam ; four the hunts of the Uni-
com ; as many more of the story of iEneis, and

DEATH OF THE QUEftN REGENT.

EDINBURGH CASTLE, PROM *1HF SOUTH-WEST.

( Fac-stmtlt of a Dutch Engraving from 0 Drawing by Gorton 0/ Roth tommy )

the 19th October, when it was borne to Leith by
a party of soldiers, and conveyed to Rheiras, in
Champagne, where her sister was prioress of a
convent

After this her young widowed daughter — whose
reign and residence imparted a splendour to the
fortress which it had not hitherto known — landed at
Leith in August, 1561, and was conducted to her
palace amid pageantry to which we shall refer when
describing other royal progresses through die city.
Mary and Lord Daroley frequently resided in the
Castle; and the records of die Scottish Jewel
House evince the e le gance with winch her apart*
neats had been fitted up. In diem we find that

one of the tale of Tobit. The floors were
of polished oak, covered with sixteen Turkey
carpets; the tables were of massive oak el ab orately
carved ; the chairs of gilded leather with cushions
of brocade and damask, the high backs being
carved with the royal crown and cypher; while
the quantity of doth of gold in die h a n gi n gs of
the beds ami decorations of the aputments is truly
amazing. Here, too, Mary kept her Btttf library.
It consisted of 153 volumes. • . . The con*
tents of its shelves, however heterogeneous edto t
how superior were die mind and a ttaimn c uil of
Mary to time of the preachers end noWcs who
ngfo mwca nc&

[Miabai*h Cmu*.

0TJ) AND NEW EDINBURGH#,

^KSljlhe of her accouchement drew near, she
* by the Lords of Council to remain in
and await it ; and a former admirer
the young Earl of Arran (captain of the
^ whose love had turned his brain, was
his prison in David’s Tower to Hamilton.

A French Queen shall beare the sonae
To rule all Britainne to the sea,

And he from the Bruce’s blood shall come
As near as to the ninth degree.”

According to the journalist Bannatyne, Knox’s
secretary, Mary was delivered with great ease by

STONE WHICH FORMERLY STOOD OVER THE BARRIER-GATEWAY OF EDINBURGH CASTLE.
(From the Original now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.)

On the ground floor at the south-east comer of the
Grand Parade there still exists, unchanged and
singularly irregular in form, the room wherein, at
ten o’clock on the morning of the 19th of June,
1-566, was bom James VI., in whose person the
rival crowns of Mary and Elizabeth were to be
united. A stone tablet over the arch of the old
doorway, with a monogram of h and m and the
date, commemorates this event, unquestionably the
greatest in the history of Britain. The royal arms
of Scotland figure on one of the walls, and an orna-
mental design surmounts the rude stone fireplace,
while four lines in barbarous doggerel record the
birth. The most extravagant joy pervaded the
entire city. Public thanksgiving was offered up in
St. Giles’s, and Sir James Melville started on the
spur with the news to the English court, and rode
with such speed that he reached London in four
days, and spoiled the tairth of the envious Eliza-
beth for one night at least with the happy news.
And an old prophecy, alleged to be made by

CIFtafcK OV LORD OAKNLEY AND QUEEN MART.

other Mtm m u Mr Xtgai 4/uhmenU, MdMurgk Castle)

Thbtnas the Rhymer, bat proved by Lord Hailes
lb be a fbrg«ty, was now supposed to be fulfilled—
* However It happen for to CU1,

The Ifcn shill be fad of all 1

the necromantic powers of the Countess of
John Earl of Athole, who was deemed a sor-
ceress, and who cast the queen’s pains upon
the Lady Reres, then in the Castle. An interest-
ing conversation between Mary and Darnley took
place in the little bed-room, as recorded in the
“ Memoirs ” of Lord -Herries. Darnley came at
two in the afternoon to see his royal spouse and
child. “ My lord,” said the queen, “ God has
given us a son.” Partially uncovering the face of
the infant, she added a protest that it was his and
no other man’s son. Then turning to an English
gentleman present, she said, “ This is the son who,

I hope, shall first unite the two kingdoms of Scot-
land and England.” Sir William Stanley said,
“Why, madam, shall he succeed before your majesty
and his father?” “Alas'!” answered Mary, “his
father has broken to me,” alluding to the con-
spiracy against Rizzio. “Sweet madam,” said
Darnley, “ is this the promise you made — that
you would forget and forgive all ? ” “I have for-
given all,” replied the queen, “but will never
forget. What if Faudonside’s (one of the assassins)
pistol had shot? What would have become of
both the babe and me ? ” “ Madam,” replied

Darnley, “these things are past” “Then,” said the
queen, “ let them go.” So ended this conversation.

It is a curious circumstance that the remains of
an infant in an oak coffin, wrapped in a shroud
marked with the letter I, were discovered built up
in the wall of this old palace in August, 1830,
but were re-consigned to their strange place of
sepulture by order of General Thackeray, com-
manding the Royal Engineers in Scotland.

When John Spotswood, superintendent of Lo-
thian, and other Reformed clergymen, came to
congratulate Mary in the name of the General
Assembly, he begged that the young Duke of'

Edinburgh Castle.]

KIRKALDY OF GRANGE.

Rothesay might be baptised in Protestant form.
The queen only replied by placing the child in
his arms. Then the aged minister knelt down, and
prayed long and fervently for his happiness and
prosperity, an event which so touched the tender
Mary that she burst into tears; however, the
prince was baptised according to the Roman ritual
at Stirling on the 5th of December.

The birth of a son produced little change in
Damley’s licentious life. He perished as history
records ; -‘and on Bothwell’s flight after Carberry,
and Mary's captivity in Lochleven, the Regent
Moray resolved by force or fraud to get all the

fortresses into his possession.. Sir
a minion of Bothwell’s— the keeper of th* famous
silver casket containing the pretended letters and
sonnets of Mary— surrendered that of Edinburgh,
bribed by lands and money as he marched out/and
the celebrated Sir William Kirkaldy of Gfffftge was
appointed governor in his place. Thfct night the
fated Regent Moray entered with his friends, and
slept in the same little apartment wherein, a year be-*
fore, his sister had been delivered of the infant now'
proclaimed as James VI. ; but instead of keeping his
promise to Balfour, Moray treacherously ift&de him
a prisoner of state in the Castle of St. Andrewa

CHAPTER VI.

EDINBURGH C ASTI .E — (continual)

The SicRe of 1573— The City bombarded from the < asile — Eli/abeth’* Spy— Drury’s Disposition* for the Siege— Execution of Kirkaldy
— Repair of the Ruin*— Execution of Morton— Visit of C harles 1 -Procession to Holyrood— Coronation of Charles I.— The Struggle
against Episcopacy- Siege of 1640 -The Spectre Drummer- Uesicged by Cromweli-Under the Piotector- The Houofstion— ' The Argyte*
— 'lhe Acceunon of James VII —Sentence of the Earl of Argyle— His clever Escape— Imprisoned four year* latei— The Le t Sleep of
Argyle— His Death— Torture of Covenanters- Proclamation of Willmm and Mary— The Siege of 1689— Interview between Gordon
and Dundee— The Castle invested— Biilliant Defence— Capitulation of the Duke of Gordon -The Spectre of Clavcrhous*.

Mary escaped from Lochleven on the 2nd of May,
1568, and after her defeat fled to England, the
last country in Europe, as events showed, wherein
she should have sought refuge or hospitality.

After the assassination of the Regent Moray, to
his successor, the Regent Morton, fell the task of
subduing all who lingered in arms for the exiled
queen ; and so well did he succeed in this, that,
save the eleven acres covered by the Castle rock
of Edinburgh, which was held for three years by
Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange with a garrison
resolute as himself, the whole country was now
under his rule.

Kirkaldy, whose services in France and else-
where had won him the high reputation of being
“ the bravest soldier in Europe," left nothing un-
done, amid the unsettled state of affairs, to
strengthen his post He raised and trained soldiers
without opposition, seized all the provisions that
were brought into Leith, and garrisoned St Giles’s
church, into the open spire of which he swung
up cannon to keep the citizens in awe. This was
on the 28th of Match, 1571. After the Duke of
Chatelhenralt, with his Hamiltons — all queen's men
—matched a in on the 1st of May, the gabies of
the church were loopholed for arquebuses. Im-
mediate means were taken to defend the town ,
against the Regent Troops crowded into it; others
am m m tert d for its protection, and this state !
of dflhirs continued for folly three feats, dating
*hfch Kirkaldy baffled the efforts of four succes-

sive Regents, till Morton was fain to seek aid
from Elizabeth, to wrench from her helpless refugee
the last strength that remained to her ; and most
readily did the English queen agree thereto.

A truce which had been made between Morton
and Kirkaldy expired on the 1st of January, 1573,
and as the church bells tolled six in the morning, the
Castle guns, among which were two 48-pounders,
French battardes, and English culverins or 18-
pounders (according to the “ Memoirs of Kirkaldy
opened on the city in the dark. It was then full
of adherents of James VI., so Kirkaldy cared not
| where his shot fell, after the gun had been dis-
charged which warned all loyal subjects of the queen
that they should retire. As the grey winter dawn
stole in, over spire and pointed roof, the can*
nonade was chiefly directed from the eastern cur-
tain against the new Fish Market ; the baskets la
which were beaten so high in the air, that for days
after their contents were seen scattered on the tops
of the highest houses. In one place a single shot
killed five persons and wounded twenty others*
Selecting a night when the wind was high and
blowing eastward, Kirkaldy made a sally, and set
on fire all the thatched houses in West Fort and
Castle Wynd, cannonading the while the nafof*
tunates who strove to qu enc h the Heines that «W
away towards the east In March Kirkaldy wso*
lately dedined to come to terms with Morton, though
earnestly besought to do so by Henry XMpap*
wbo^ame ostensibly t* an En ghsb nav^ title

OLD. AND NEW EDINBURGH.,

a*hn»OMk

JL

frw Elizabeth. «* He was next
1 p re t ended friendly manner, by Sir
f, Elizabeth’s Marshal of Berwick,
built Drury House in Wych Street,

; fowl who fell in a duel with Sir John
about precedence, and from whom
I ta kes its name. When about to enter
Q m rtfo gate, an English deserter, who had
under Queen Mary, in memory of some
^grudge, was about to shoot him with his arquebuse,

began to invest the Castle with his paid Scottish
companies, who formed a battery on the Castle
hill, from which Kirkaldy drove them all in rout
on the night of the 15th. On the following day,
Sir William Drury, in direct violation of the
Treaty of Blois, which declared “ that no foreign
troops should enter Scotland,' 1 at the head of the
old bands of Berwick, about 1,500 men, marched
for Edinburgh. A trumpeter, on the 25 th of April,
summoned Kirkaldy to surrender ; but he replied

£OQM IN EDINBURGH CASTLE IN WHICH JAMES VI. WAS BORN.

when he was seized, and given up by Sir William
Kirkaldy. This courtesy was ill-requited by his
visitor, whose sole object was to note the numbers
Of his garrison and cannon, the height and strength
cf the walls, &c” In anticipation of a siege, the
dtasens built several traverses to save the High
Stmt from being enfiladed ; one of these, formed
between the Thieves' Hole and Bess Wynd, was two
eQs in thickness, composed of turf and mud ; and
another near It was two spears high. In the city,
die Partbunea t assembled on the 17th of January,
Mb a atom regalia of gQt bnfcr, as Kirkaldy had
the crown and ml tqpfialn die Castle.

" gnonecm, Mowtm

by hoisting, in place of the St Andrew’s ensign, a
red flag on David’s Tower as a token of resistance
to the last.

Five batteries had been erected against him
by the 15th of May. These were armed with
thirty guns, including two enormous bombardes or
100-pounders, which were loaded by means of a
crane ; a great carthoun or 48-pounder ; and many
1 8-pounders. There was also a movable battery
of falcons. Under the Regent Morton, the first
battery was on the high ground now occupied by the
Heriofs Hospital; die semdj under Drury, opposed
to 'St Mugjutfi Tower, was near the Tothfen
Stand; the third, tinder Sir Ggoige Carey, and the

y fcbw yh Cs2tk>]

KIRKALDyg SURRltfDER.

fe mth. under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St Cuthbert’s church ; while the fifth, under Sir
Xhomas Sutton, was on the line of Princes Street,
and faced King David’s Tower.

All t h*°“ g »"« opened simultaneously on Sunday,
die 17th of M6y, by salvoes; and the shrieks of
the women in the Castle were distinctly heard
in the '•amp of the Regent and in the city.
The fire was maintained on both sides with un-
g frpted vigour— nor were the arquebuses idle — till
the 43rd, when Sutton’s guns having breached

4 *

sieged depended chiefly for water.
batteiy then covered half of the Mpwkde*
Hohnshed mentions another spring, St, lb aglet's
Well, from which Kirkald/s men secretly obtained
water till the besiegers poisoned it 1 By thin time
the survivors were so exhausted by toil efld want
of food as to be scarcely able to bear adnour, or
work the remammg guns. On the 28th Ktttcaldy
requested a parley by beat of drum, and was
lowered over the rums by ropes in his armour, to
arrange a capitulation ; but Morton would hear

David’s Tower, the enormous mass, with all its
guns and men, and with a roar as of thunder, came
crashing over the rocks, and masses of it must have
fallen into the loch 200 feet below The Gate
Tower with the portcullis and Wallace’s Tower,
were battered down by the 24th. The guns of
the queen's garrison were nearly silenced now, and
cnes of despair were heard. The great square
Peel and the Constable’s Tower, with the curtain
between, armed with brass cannon — edifices of
great antiquity— came crashing down in succession,
and their diMs choked up the stffl existing draw-
wells. Stjll the garrison did not quite lose
taut, until die hrwfgrm got pOMcsvicit of die
Spur, within which was the well on which the bo-

JL

f nothing now save an unconditional
5 the red flag of defiance was pulled down on tho
blowing day. By the Regent’s order the Scottish
ompanies occupied the breaches, with otderito
xclude all Englishmen. “The governor delivered
is sword to Sir William Drury on receiving die
olemn assurance of bring restored to Ids esttttt
nd liberty at the intercession of E Mrsbe t W
lie remnant of his garrison msidied/»to th e c ity
d armour with banners dwplaycd $ these WHO
orth, with the Lord Home, twelve
oldieie, and ten boys, noth several hwh w*
lading *e Count** of Argyte.’’

Dander was basely delivered up by ftwjr m y
fedfctive power of «he JUsga* j A* 4H4

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

with two burgesses of the dty,
backwards in carts to the market
itotsy were hanged, and their heads
upon the ruined castle walls. Within
were found twenty-two close carts for
n, and 2,400 cannon balls,
whole garrison were thrust into the dungeons
adjacent castles in the county ; and four sol-
iers — Glasford, Stewart, Moffat, and Millar — “de-
clared traitors” for having assisted Kirkaldy “in
the demolishing and casting down of the bigginis,
showting great and small peissis, without fear of
God or remorse of conscience.” had to do public
penance at one of the doors of St Giles's for
three days “ deid in sack cleith." *

'The Regent made his brother, George Douglas
of Parkhead (one of the assassins of Rizzio),
governor, and he it was who built the present half-
moon battery, and effected other repairs, so that
a plan still preserved shows that by 1575 the for-
tress had in addition thereto eight distinct towers,
facing the town and south-west, armed by forty
pieces of cannon, exclusive of Mons Meg, arque-
busses, and cut-throats. Over the new gate Morton
placed, above the royal arms, those of his own
family, a fact which was not forgotten when he lost
his head some years after.

In 1576, Alexander Innes of that ilk being
summoned to Edinburgh concerning a lawsuit with
a clansman, Innes of Pethknock, met the latter
by chance near the market cross— then the chief
promenade — and amid high words struck him dead j
with his dagger, and continued to lounge quietly
wear the body. He was made prisoner in the
Castle, and condemned to lose his head ; but pro-
cured a remission from the corrupt Regent by
relinquishing one of his baronies, and gave an
•entertainment to all his friends*, “If I had my
foot once loose," said he, vauntingly, “I would
fain see if this Earl of Morton dare take possession
•of my land 1 " This, though a jest, was repeated
to Morton, who retained the bond for the barony,
‘hut, according to the history of the Innes family,
»jhad the head of Innefe instantly struck off within

ffrif-inW

IBP

odious became the administration of Morton
that, in 1578, James VI., though only twelve years
•of ago, was prevailed upon by Aigyle and Athole
to summon the peers, pasome the government, and
dismiss Merton, an announcement made by heralds
8t the fame on the itth of March, under three
^aafcjlfei fam'Hte new hatfmoon ; but it was not
tittpfofi* tj rimfa wti n g in

a deadly brawl which roused the whole city in arms
and brought the craftsmen forth with morions,
plate sleeves, and steel jacks, and when the entire
High Street bristled with pikes and Jedwood axes,
that Parkhead, when summoned, gave up the for-
tress to the Earl of Mar, to whom the Earl of Mor-
ton delivered the regalia and crown jewels, conform-
ably to an ancient inventory, receiving in return a
pardon for all his misdemeanours — a document
that failed to save him, when, in 1580, he was con-
demned and found guilty of that crime for which
he had put so many others to death — the murder
of Daroley — and had his head struck off by the
“ Maiden," an instrument said to be of his own adop-
tion, dying unpitied amid the execrations of as-
sembled thousands. Calderwood relates that as he
was being conducted captive to the Castle, a woman,
whose husband he had put to death, cursed him
loudly on her bare knees at the Butter Tron. His
head was placed on a port of the city.

From this period till the time of Charles I. little
concerning the Castle occurs in the Scottish annals,
save the almost daily committal of State prisoners
to its dungeons, some of which are appalling
places, hewn out of the living rock, and were then
destitute nearly of all light. From one of these,
Mowbray of Bambougle, incarcerated in 1602 for
slaying a servant of James -VI. in the palace of
Dunfermline, in attempting to escape, fell headlong
through the air, and was dashed on the stony
pathway that led to the Royal Mews 300 feet
below. His body was quartered, and placed on the
Cross, Nether Bow, Potter Row, and West Ports.

In May, 1633, Charles L visited the capital of
his native country, entermg it on the x6th by the
West Port, amid a splendour of many kinds ; and
On the 17th, under a salute of fifty-two guns, he
proceeded to the Castle attended by sixteen
coaches and the Horse Guards. He remained in
the royal lodgings one night, and then returned
to Holyrood. On the i>th of June he was again
in the Castle, when the venerable Earl of Mar gave
a magnificent banquet in the great hall, where
many of the first nobles in Scotland and England
were, as Spalding states, seated on each side
of Charles. To that hall he was conducted next
morning, and placed on a throne under a velvet
canopy, by the Duke of Lennox, Lord High
Chamberlain of Scotland. The peers of the realm
then entered in procession wearing their crimson
velvet robes, each belted with his s wo rd, and with
his coronet boom before him. The Qumofia^
Viscount DoppUn, addressed h^m mthenameef the
Pariiament. Charles wm then (^shctedt s
tom riaari' beam m armaos to BetelMj

CORONATION OF CHSSfcLES L

and long it was since Edinburgh had been
the scene of anything so magnificent Every
window was crowded with eager faces, and every
house was gay with flowers, banners, and tapestry.
“ Mounted on a roan horse, and having a saddle
of rich velvet sweeping the ground, and massive with
pasements of gold, Alexander Clark, the Provost,
appeared at the head of the bailies and council to
meet the king, while the long perspective of the
crowded street ( then terminated by the spire of
the. Nether Bow) was lined (as Spalding says) by
a brave company of soldiers, all clad in white
satin doublets, black velvet breeches, and silk
stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, and bands.
These gallants had dainty muskets, pikes, and gilded
partisans. Six trumpeters, m gold lace and scarlet,
preceded the procession, which moved slowly from
the Castle gate.

Then came the
lords in their
robes of scarlet
ermined and
laced, riding, with
long foot -man-
tles; the bishops
in their white
rochets and lawn
sleeves looped
with gold ; the
viscounts in scar-
let robes; Had-
dington bearing
the Privy Seal;

Morton the Treasurer’s golden mace, with its globe of
sparkling beryl ; the York and Norroy English kings-
at-arms with their heralds, pursuivants, and trum-
peters in tabards blazing with gold and embroidery;
Sir James Balfour, the Scottish Lion king, pre-
ceding the spurs, sword, sceptre, and crown, borne
by earls. Then came the Lord High Constable,
riding, with his b&ton, supported by the Great
Chamberlain and Earl Marshal, preceding Charles,
who was arrayed in a robe of purple velvet once
wom by James IV., and having a foot-cloth em-
broidered with silver and pearls, and his long train
upborne by the young Lords Lome, Annan, Dal-
keith, and Kinfauns. Then came the Gentlemen
Pensioners, marching with partisans uplifted ; then
the Yeomen of the Guard, clad in doublets of
naset velvet, with the royal arms raised in em-
bossed work of silver and gold on the back and
breast of each coat— each com p an y commanded
byanemi ; The gentlemen of the Scottish Horse
armed 4 4 *

ENTABLATURE ABOVL THE GATEWAY, EDINBURGH CASTLE.

But most of the assembled multitude iNfjte#
darkly apd doubtfully on* la almost egm | $ limit
there lurked the secret dread of thft
with the Scottish Church which for years had been
conspicuous.

Charles, with great solemnity, was crowned king
of Scotland, England, France^ and Ireland, by the
Bishop of St. Andrews, who placed the crown upon
his head ; and on the 18th July he left Edinburgh
on hts return to London. Under the m&l-influcncc*
of the zealot Laud ruin and civil war soon came,
when Episcopacy wa? imposed upon th^ people.
A committee of Covenanters was speedily formed
at Edinburgh, and when the king’s commissioner
arrived, in 1638, he found the Castle beset by
armed men. His efforts at mediation were futile ;
and famous old “ Jenny Geddes ” took the initiative

by dashing her
stool at the
Dean’sheadinSt
Giles’s church.
But Jenny's real
name is now
said to have
been Barbara
Hamilton. All
Scotland was up
in arms against
Episcopacy. War
was resolved on,
and with a noble
ardour thousands
of trained Scot-
tish officers and soldiers, who had been pushing
their fortune by the shores of the Elbe and the
Rhine, in Sweden and Germany, came pouring
home to enrol under the banner of the Covenant;
a general attack was concerted on every fortress
in Scotland ; and the surprise of Edinburgh was
undertaken by the commander of the army, Sit
Alexander Leslie of Balgonie, Marshal of Sweden
under Gustavus Adolphus— a soldier s econd In
none in Europe.

This he achieved successfully on the evening of
the 28th March, when he blew in thq barrier. gate
with a petard. The Covenanters rushed through .
the Spur sword in hand, and the second gate Ml
before their sledge-hammers, and then Haldane of
Gleneagles, the governor, gave Mp Mb ewowL
That right Leslie gave the Covenanting fowls *
banquet in the hall of foe Castl e, whaRWDW tiwjT
hoisted their bine standard with the m ot to, m Hm
an oppressed kirk anA* broken Cfow9naflfc>\
pose’s regiment, 1,500 string, nptsiil/1 ftaplfcim |

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

i prisoners to his care, and
\ the pacification of Berwick.

I of November, King Charles’s birth-
r faction Of the curtain-wall, which was
\ With a crash over the rocks ; and the
ss$oiced at this event as boding evil to
J'lifytii Ouse. After the pacification, the Castle,
t toy others, was restored to the king, who
IflfOftd ttarem a garrison, under Sir Patrick Ruth-

made from the gate. Batteries were thrown up
at nearly the same places where they had been
formed in Kirkaldy’s time. Ruthven refused to
give the Estates the use of the regklia. Under
Colonel Hamilton, master of the ordnance, the
batteries opened with vigour, while select muske-
teers were “told off,” to aim at individuals on the
ramparts. Most bitter was the defence of Ruth-
ven, whose cannonade imperilled the whole city

e«n (previously Governor of Ulm under the great
Ctaftaras), who marched in, on the 25th February,
#640, with drums beating and matches lighted. As
dbfi magistrates refused to supply him with provisions,
mi raised 500 men to keep a watch upon his
gprison, this testy veteran of the Swedish wan
And a few heavy shot at random on die city,
Md the renewal of hostilities between Charles
end th|S ‘Scots, Leslie was ordered by the Parlia-
ment, the wth June, to reduce the fortress.
> fcpfr S • mhmwtw, was to open fixe
and WAaChlocks m every direction, and
Ac

and the beautiful spire of St Giles's; while poor
people reaping in the fields at a distance were
sometimes killed by it

The Covenanters sprung a mine, and blew up
the south-east angle of the Spur ; but the ragged
aspect of the breach was such that few of their
officers seemed covetous of leading a forlorn hope,
especially as old Ruthven, in his rich armour cad
plumed hat, appeared at the summit heading a
band of pikes. At last the Laird of Drum and*
Captain Weddal, at the tpadqt 185 men, under a
qyjjla & h i mi Mp A ndt
but OK dxy pined die « cm««

UbbggiCtttN

THE COVENANTtgs.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.*

[SdUwi^CMCk

k i wnt>v with musket-balls was de-
f g w iep it, and did so with awful effect
to th$ historian of the 41 Troubles/’

; WO were blown to shreds. Weddal had both*

I b roke n , and Somerville, with a few who were
grovelled close under the wall, where
, who recognised him as an old Swedish
bOttrade, besought him to retire, adding, “ I derive
pleasure in the death of gallant men.” Of the
whole escalade only thirty-three escaped alive, and
of these many were wounded, a result which
cooled the ardour of the besiegers; but after a
three months’ blockade, finding his gjarrison few,
and all suffering from scurvy, and that provisions
and ammunition were alike expended, on the 18th
September, after
a blockade of
five months in
all, during which
1,000 men had
been slain, he
marched outwith
the honours of
war (when so ill
with scurvy that
he could scarcely
walk) at the head
of seventy men,
with one drum
beating, one
standard flying,
matches lighted, *
and two pieces
of cannon, with
balls in their
muzzles and the
port-fires blazing at both ends. They all sailed for
England in a king’s ship. Ruthven fought nobly
for the king there, and dwd at a good^oM age in
1651, Earl of Forth and Brentford Jtagyte, the
Dictator of Scotland, in “the autumn of 1648 in-
vited Oliver Cromwell to Edinburgh, and enter-
tained him with unwonted magnificence in the
gftfct hall of the Castle ; afterwards they hdd many
mteings in Lady Home’s house, in the Canon-
gate, where, the resolution to take away the king’s
We was discussed and approved of; for which the
aaid Dictator afterwards lost his head.

The Md important event in the history of
** tt* the iron-betted rode,

Warn tnifted fie the monarchal Mtt gen*

spepti% imi, nd wow t h a t graced the brows
$*»**««% fctf tatefaMMWaifr*

w 0 & ridings reaching
^ HlbBg off Omtes Hhan

the former was advancing north at the head of an
army, the Parliament ordered the Castle to be put
in a state of defence. There were put therein a
select body of troops under Colonel Walter
Dundas, 1,000 bolls of meal and malt, 1,000 tons
of coal, 67 brass and iron guns, including Mons
Meg and howitzers, 6,000 stand of arms, and a
vast store of warlike munition..

According to the superstition of the time the
earth and air all over Scotland teemed with strange
omens of the impending strife, and in a rare old
tract, of 1650, we are told of the alarm created in
the fortress by the appearance of a “horrible
apparition ” beating upon a drum.

On a dark night the sentinel, under the shadow

of the gloomy
half-moon, was
alarmed by the
beating of a
drum upon the
esplanade and
the tread of
marching feet, on
which he fired
his musket Col
Dundas hur-
ried forth, but
could see noth-
ing on the bleak
expanse, the site
of the now de-
molished Spur.
The sentinel was
truncheoned,
and another put
in his places to
whom the same thing happened, and he, too, fired
his musket, affirming that he heard the tread
of soldiers marching to the tuck of drum. To
Dundas nothing was visible, nothing audible but
the moan of the autumn wind. He took a
musket and the post of sentinel. Anon he heard
the old Scots march, beaten by an invisible
drummer, who came dose up to the gate; then
came other sounds— -the tramp of many feet and
dank of accoutrements ; still nothing was visible,
till the whole impalpable array seemed to hak
dose by Dundas, who was bewildered with con-
sternation. Again a drum was heard heating the
English, and then the French march, when the
alarm ended; but the next drums that were beaten
there were those of diver C ro ea wdL
When foe latter sg psrggh ts t .1 sdirib mgh he
fand the whole ;

parallel with Leith Walk, ha flanks

covenanters' flag.

(From the Muteum qf the Society of Antiguaru r of Scotland )

SdtabnqhCfcitlt-]

OLIVER CROMWELL IN E«NBURGH.

guns and howitzers on the bastions of the latter
and the Calton Hill The sharp encounter there,
and at St. Leonard’s Hill, in both of which he was
completely repulsed, are apart from the history of
the fortress, from the ramparts of which the young
fring Charles II. witnessed them ; but the battle
of Dunbar subsequently placed all the south of
Scotland at the power of Cromwell, when he was
in desperation about returning for England, the
Scots having cut off his retreat On the 7th
September,. 1650, he entered Edinburgh, and placed
it under martial law, enforcing the most rigid regu-
lations ; yet the people had nothing to complain
of, and justice was impartially administered. He
took up his residence at the Earl of Moray's
house — that stately edifice on the south side of the
Canongate — and quartered his soldiers in Holyrood
and the city; but his guard, or outlying picket,
was in Dunbar’s Close— so named from the victors
of Dunbar ; and tradition records that a handsome
old house at the foot of Sellars Close was occasionally
occupied by him while pressing the siege of the
Castle, which was then full of those fugitive
preachers whose interference had caused the ruin
of Leslie’s army. With them he engaged in a
curious polemical discussion, and is said by Pink-
erton to have preached in St Giles’s churchyard to
the people. To facilitate the blockade he de-
molished the ancient Weigh House, which was
not replaced till after the Restoration.

He threw up batteries at Heriot’s Hospital, which
was full of his wounded ; on the north bank of the
loch, and the stone bartisan of Davidson’s house
on the Castle Hill. He hanged in view of the
Castle, a poor old gardener who had supplied
Dundas with some information ; and during these
operations, Nicollthe diarist, records that there were
many slain, “ both be schot of canoun and musket,
*s weell Scottis as Inglische.” Though the garrison
received a good supply of provisions, by the bravery
of Captain Augustine, a German soldier of fortune
who served in the Scottish army, and who hewed a
passage into the fortress through Cromwell’s guards,
*£ die head of 120 horse, Dundas, when tampered
with, was cold in his defence. Cromwell pressed
the siege with vigour. He mustered colliers from
the adjacent country, and forced them, under fire,
to work at a mine on the south side, near the new
Casde road, where it can still be seen in the
freestone rock. Dundas, a traitor from the first,
®ow lost all heart, and came to terms with
Qomweffl, to whom he capitulated on die xatfa of

Exactly as St Giles’s dock struck twelve fa
garrison marched out, with drums beati ng wiiM
colours flying, after which the Casde wasgmpted
by “ English blasphemers ” (as, the Scots called
them) under Colonel George Fenwick. Cromwell,
in reporting all this to the English Parliament,
sap : — “ I think I need say little of the stM^th of
this place, which, if it had not come as it did, would
have cost much blood. . • . I must needs say,
not any skill or wisdom of ours, but the good will of
God hath given you this place.”

By the second artide of the treaty the records of
Scotland were transmitted to Stirling; on the Capture
of which they were sent in many hogsheads to
London, and lost at sea when being sent back.

Dundas was arraigned before the Parliament,
and his reputation was never freed from the stain
cast upon it by the capitulation; and Sir James
Balfour, his contemporary, plainly calls him k base,
cowardly, “ traitorous villane ! ”

Cromwell defaced the royal arms at the Castle

gate and elsewhere ; yet his second in command,
Monk, was f€ted at a banquet by the magistrates,
when, on the 4th May, 165s, he was proclaimed
Protector of the Commonwealth.

At first brawls were frequent, and English
soldiers were cut off on every available occasion.
One day in the High Street, an officer came from
Cromwell’s house “in great chafe,” says Patrick
Gordon, and as he mounted his horse, rashly cried
aloud, “ With my own hands I killed the Scot to
whom this horse and these pistols belonged. Who
dare say I wronged him?” “I dare, and thus
avenge him ! ” exclaimed one who stood near, and,
running the Englishman through the body, mounted
his horse, dashed through the nearest gate, and
escaped into the fields.

For ten yean there was perfect peace in Edin
burgh, and stage coaches began to run every three
j weeks between it and the “George Inn, without
AldenfeM^ London,” for £4 roe. a seat Lambert's
officen preached in the High Kirk, and bufikoated
troopers taught and expounded in the Parliament
House ; and so acceptable became the eway of
the Protector to civic rulers that they had just pew
posed to erect acolomal stone monument in Ids
honour, when die Restoration came 1

It was hsiled with the wildest joy by all the
Scottish people The crosa of Edinburgh was
garianded with flowers ; its fountains ran with wine;

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. f* — him, n.ia,

% £*£ias Ml of the Major-General com- received it, concealed its nature, and at once began
* his march southward, with the army of Scotland, to

10 ^Axdusologia Scotica " we cull the accomplish the Restoration,
grtous anecdote Soon after the death When the Puritan gunners in the Castle were
eQ, the English Council, in 1660, sus- ordered to fire a salute in honour of that event, an
cneral Monk's fidelity, sent an order old “saint” of Oliver’s first campaigns bluntly re-
him from the head of their forces in fused obedience, skying, “ May the devil blaw me

f ife? ^Aichmologia Scotica” we cull the
burtons anecdote Soon after the death
well, the English Council, in 1660, sus-
General Monk’s fidelity, sent an order
If MMt him from the head of their forces in

SpMSand. Their ordinary special messenger, who into the air gif I lowse a cannon this day 1 If 1 do,
ted usually borne such messages, was entrusted some man shall repent it!” Then, according to

with this one, which
he was ordered
not to deliver to
Monk, but to
(Colonel New-
man) the Governor
of Edinburgh Cas-
tle. It chanced
that the principal
servant erf the former met, near the Canon-
gate-head, his old friend the messenger, whom
he accosted with cordiality. “How comes it,”
he asked, 11 that you go in this direction, and
not* as usual, to the General at Dalkeith?”

are for the Castle.”
With re*dy wit the tenant of Monk suspected that
****** «* "ron*, and proposed they ah&ld
hm a fa* tie top&er. Thb messenger partook
$My ; the aervaaf pwriofeod 4m despatch ; Mock

Nicoll, he was forced to discharge a gun, which
burst, and verifying his words, “ shuites his bellie
from him, and blew him quyte over the Castle
wall, in the sichte of mony pepill.” On the 3rd of
January, 1661, Scottish' companies were enlisted
under the Earl of Middleton to re-garrison the
fortress, wherein the first Marquis of Aigyle was
committed to prison, having been sent from the
Tower on the accusation of “complying with
Cromwell in the death of Charles I.”

Thus he found himself a captive in the dungeons
under the same hall in which he had feasted the
Protector, and where he could hear the salutes
fired as the remains of his rival Montpwe were
laid in the church of St Giles. He was brought
to trial in the Parliament Houpe, where Middleton,
with fierce exultation, hid before the peers certain
letters written by the Marquis to Cromwell, all
expressive of attachment to Urn perns nm% and

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH,

rcdbfauf^cutk

These documents had been perfidiously Scottish manners gradually gave way before the
by General Monk. The marquis affability of such entertainers as the Duchess

to die the death of a traitor. Mary d’ Este of Modena, and the Princess Anne,

'%$m the Castle he begged in vain a ten days 1 “ and the novel luxuries of the English court
that he might crave pity of the king. “ I formed an attraction to the Scottish grandees.
y^4 the crown upon his head,*’ said he, mourn- Tea was introduced for the first time into Scotland
|£ *and this is my reward !* on this occasion, and given by the duchess as a

Jus escape was planned. He lay in bed for great treat to the Scottish ladies. Balls, plays, and
Some days feigning illness, and the Marchioness masquerades were also attempted ; but the last
tipune in a sedan to visit him. Being of the same proved too great an innovation on the rigid man-
atature, he assumed her dress and coif ; but when ners of that period to be tolerated.”
about to step into the sedan his courage failed him, The accession of King James VII. is thus re-
and he abandoned the attempt. The night before corded by Lord Fountainhall (“ Decisions,” vol. i.) :

execution he was removed to the most ancient — “Feb. 6th, 1685. The Privy Council is called

prison in Edinburgh — an edifice in Mauchine’s extraordinary, on the occasion of an express sent
Close, long since removed, where the Marchioness them by his royal highness the Duke of Albany,
awaited him. “ The Lord will requite it,” she ex- telling that, on Monday the 2nd February, the king
claimed, as she wept bitterly on his breast “ For- was seized with a violent and apoplectic fit, which
bear, Margaret/ 1 said he, calmly, “I pity my stupefied him for four hours ; but, by letting twelve
enemies, and am as content in this ignominious ounces of blood and applying cupping-glasses to
prison as in yonder Castle of Edinburgh.” his head, he revived. This unexpected surprise

With his last breath he expressed abhorrence of put our statesmen in a hurly-burly, and was
the death of Charles I., and on the 27 th May his followed by the news of the death of his Majesty,
head was struck from his body by the Maiden, at which happened on the 7th of February, and came
the west end of the Tolbooth. By patent all his home to us on the 10th, in the morning; whereupon
ancient earldom and estates were restored to his a theatre was immediately erected at the cross of
son, Lord Lome, then a prisoner in the Castle, Edinburgh, and the militia companies drawn out
where on one occasion he had a narrow escape, in arms ; and, at ten o’clock, the Chancellor,
when playing “ with hand bullets ” (bowls ?) one Treasurer, and all the other officers of State, with
of which, as Wodrow records, struck him senseless, the nobility, lords of Privy Council and Session, the
On the 30th May, 1667, the batteries of the magistrates and town council of Edinburgh, came
Castle returned the salute of the English fleet, to the cross, with the lion king-atarms, his heralds
which came to anchor in the roads under the and trumpeters ; the Chancellor carried his own
pennant of Sir Jeremiah Smythe, who came thither purse, and, weeping, proclaimed James Duke oj

in quest of the Dutch fleet, which had been bom-
barding Bumtislandi

Albany the only and undoubted king of this realm , by
the title of James VII. y the clerk registrar reading

James Duke of Albany and York succeeded the the words of the Act to him, and all of them swore
odious Duke of Lauderdale in ,the administration faith and allegiance to him. Then the other pro-
of Scottish affairs, and won the favour of all classes, clamation was then read, whereby King James VII.
while he resided at Hdlyrood awaiting the issue of continued all offices till he had more time to send

the famous Bill of Exclusion, which would deprive down new commissions Then the

him of the throne of England on the demise of Castle shot a round of guns, and sermon began,
his brother, and hence it became his earnest desire wherein Mr. John Robertson did regret our loss,
to secure at least Scotland, the hereditary kingdom but desired our tears might be dried up when we
of his race. On his first visit to the Castle, on looked upon so brave and excellent a successor.
30th October, 1680, Mons Meg burst when the The Privy Council called for all the seals, and broke
guns were’ saluting — a ring near the touch-hole them, appointing new ones with the name of James
giving way* which, saith Fountainhall, was deemed VII. to be made.”

by all men a bed omen. His lordship adds that In 1681 the Earl of Argyle was committed to
as the gun am charged by an English gunner, the Castle for the third time for declining the oath
tgBC* "fog Boots res eated it extremely, thinking required by foe obnoxious Test Act as Commas-
ha might, dfmafio^ have done it purposely, they sfoneroT foe Scottish Treasury; and on foe xsfo
having no camion in all Etttbmd so big as she.* of December an assise taught in foeir verdict, by
Duttnafoaddbe^reaidteDceitHolyroodasDlendid foe Maitmis of Montrose, his hereditary foe. finding
M dm fa** «MM. Ite rigid decorum of fain guikjr “of treuw aad Mag hr

trhich he received the sentence of death. His
guards in the Castle were doubled, while additional
troops were marched into the city to enforce order.
He despatched a messenger to Charles II. seeking
mercy, but the warrant had been hastened. At
six in the evening of the aoth December he was
informed that next day at noon he would be con-
veyed to the city prison ; but by seven o’clock he
had conceived — like his father — a plan to escape.

Lady Sophia Lindsay (of Balcarres), wife of his
son 'Charles; had come to bid him a last farewell ; on
her departure he assumed the disguise and office
of her lackey, and came forth from his prison at
eight, bearing up her long train. A thick fall of
snow and the gloom of the Decembei evening
rendered the attempt successful ; but at the outer
gate the sentinel roughly grasped his arm. In
agitation the earl dropped the train of Lady Sophia,
who, with singular presence of mind, fairly slapped
his face with it, and thereby smearing his features
with half-frozen mud, exclaimed, “Thou careless
loon!”

Laughing at this, the soldier permitted them to
pass. Lady Sophia entered her coach; the earl
sprang on the footboard behind, and was rapidly
driven from the fatal gate. Disguising himself com- |
pletely, he left Edinburgh, and reached Holland, j
then. the focus for all the discontented spirits in |
Britain. Lady Sophia was committed to the j

The last day of his life this unfortunate ncMe
passed pleasantly and sweetly ; he dined heartily,
and, retiring to a closet, lay down to sleep ere the
fatal hour came. At this time one of the Privy
Council arrived, and insisted on entering. The door
was gently opened, and there lay the great Algylc
in his heavy irons, sleeping the placid sleep of
infancy. ,

“ The conscience of the renegade smote him,”
says Macaulay ; “ he turned sick at heart, ran
out of the Castle, and took refuge iq the dwelling
of a lady who lived hard by. There hq flung
himself on a couch, and gave himself up to an
agony of remorse and shame. His kinswoman,
alarmed by his looks and groans, thought he had
been taken with sudden illness, and begged him to
drink a cup of sack. 4 No, no,’ said he, * it will
do me no good.’ She prayed him to tell what had
disturbed him. 4 1 have been,’ he said, 4 in Aigyle'a
prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity
sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for
me !»”

At noon on the 30th June, 1685, he was escorted
to the market cross to be “ beheaded and have
his head affixed to the Tolboothon a high pin
of iron.” When he saw the old Scottish guillo-
tine, under the terrible square knife of which his
father, and so many since the days of Morton, had
perished, he saluted it with his lips, saying, 44 It is

Tol booth, but was not otherwise punished. After !
remaining four years in Holland, he returned, and
attempted an insurrection in the west against
King James, in unison with that of Monmouth in
England, but was irretrievably defeated at Muir-
dykes.

Attired like a peasant, disguised by a long beard,
he was discovered and overpowered by three
militiamen, near Paisley. 44 Alas, alas, unfortunate
Argyle ! ” he exclaimed, as they struck him down ;
then an officer, Lieutenant Shaw (of the house of
Greenock), ordered him to be bound hand and foot
and sent to Edinburgh, where, by order of the
Secret Council, he was ignominiously conducted
through the streets with his hands corded behind
him, bareheaded, escorted by the horse guards, and
preceded by the hangman to the Castle, where, for
a third time, he was thrust into his old chamber.
On the day he was to die he despatched the fol-
lowing note to his son. It is preserved in the
Salton Charter chest : —

44 Edr. Castle, 30th June, ’8$.

to Ja*W»— L e»tn to fear God ; it is the only w my

*7 wife, sod h e arken to her advice. The Lord ble^'Tial

P»»l ovfegfcte. Amyls,"

the sweetest maiden I have ever kissed.” 44 My
lord dies a Protestant!” cried a clergyman aloud
to the assembled thousands. 44 Yes,” said the Earl,
stepping forward, 44 and not only a Protestant, but
with a heart-hatred of Popery, Prelacy, and all super-
stition.” He made a brief address to the people,
laid his head between the grooves of the guillotine,
and died with equal courage and composure. His
head was placed on the Tolbooth gable, and his
body was ultimately sent to the burial-place of his
family, Kilmun, on the shore of the Holy Loch in
Argyle.

While this mournful tragedy was being enacted
his countess and family were detained prisoners is
| the Casde, wherein daily were placed fresh victims
who were captured in the West Among these
were Richard Rumbold, a gentleman of Hertford*

! shire, who bore a colonel’s commission under
! Argyle (and had planted the standard of revolt
on the Castle of Ardkinglaas), and Mr. Wilittm
Spence, styled his 44 servitour.”

Both were treated with terrible severity, es p e cia ll y
Rumbold. In a cart, bareheaded, and heavily
manacled, he was conveyed from the Water Get#
to the Castle, escorted by Graham's City
with .drams betting, and on the aftth of Jfnoe m

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

(BtifoqliGutlt

k j d rawn, and quartered, it the Cross,

lb heart was tom from his breast, and
dripping and reeking, by the execu-
^ ©n the point of a plug-bayonet, while he
ned, H Behold the heart of Richard Rum-
hM, a bloody English traitor and murderer!’ 1
jfrttbrfb ig to Wodrow and others, his head, after
bdbg placed on the West Port, was sent to London
<A tbe 4th of August, while his quarters were gib-
beted in the four principal cities in Scotland.

“Mr. William Spence was put to the torture by
die Privy Council concerning his master’s affairs,
and the contents of several letters in cipher.
After that he was put in the hands of Sir Thomas

University of Edinburgh, and Moderator of die
General Assembly; but such barbarities soon
brought their own punishment; die Revolution
came, and with it the last actual siege of the Castle
of Edinburgh.

On tidings of William’s intended invasion the
whole standing forces of Scotland marched south,
to form a junction with the English on Salisbury
Plain, where they conjointly deserted King James.

The Castle at this crisis had been entrusted by
the latter to the Duke of Gordon, a Roman Catholic,
who vowed to preserve it “ for the king, though the
Prince of Orange should obtain possession of every
other fortress in the kingdom.”

ft

PalyeH, Colonel of the Scots Greys, a grim old
veteran, whose snow-white vow-beard had never
been cut since the death of Charles I., and by
whom, says Fountainh&ll, “with a hair-shirt and
pricking (as the witches are used), he was kept five
flights from sleep, till he was half distracted.”
After being thumb-screwed till his hands were
hopelessly crushed, he was again flung into the
Castle, where perhaps the most pleasant sounds
he heard were the minute guns, about Michaelmas,
saluting the corpse of his “ persecutor ” (Daly ell,
who died suddenly) as it was passing through the
West Port, with six field-pieces, the whole of the
Scottish forces in Edinburgh, with his horse, b&ton,
end amour, to the family vault near Abercom.
Spence ultimately read the ciphers, which led to
the captpre, captivity in the Castle, and torture no
km font twenty times, of foe fomous William
jlQmtmm, Of that 3k, afterwards Principal of foe

As an example of how the people were imposed
upon in those days, when rumours were easily cir-
culated and difficult of contradiction, we may here
quote an anonymous broadsheet, which was then
hawked about the streets of London and other
places in England : —

“ A true relation of the horrid and bloody massacrt
in Scotland

“ By the Irish Papists ; who landed sixty miles
from Edinburgh, putting all to fire and sword in
their way to that city.

" Banmk, Dee. 23m; 1688.

41 Sia,— Yesternight we had the aad and surprising news,
fay an Express of the Council of Scotland to our Govemoor,
that about 20*000 Irish were landed in Scotland, about sixty
»ile* from Edinburgh, putting all to fire and avoid, to
whom the Apostate Chancellor of that kfcyfam will join
with the test of die bloody Papists there. And truly, sir,
that kingdom being unarm'd and mafiadplm'd, thorn mao*

Edinburgh CW«.1

A BROADSHEET OF THl£ PERIOD.

•t

oua or uTiicui at tA ommra or m mat rmarmr or JOT TO.

tbMANWftiTAtaiJM iftblhhl

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH*

tattoqfhCMit

* itkoM apace, ran a gnat length. I deaira
^wmfbp$m this news abroad, if it be not in town
Milvljt nonpt of this ; for that country, and the North
Without speedy relief, is in 'great danger of
M|Pl^ And the Duke of Gordon hath m his posses-
JpU'CMe of Edinburgh, whereby he can at pleasure
■fol&City ' with the ground. At twelve of the dock yester-
IHM OUT Governor, Lieut.-Collonel Billingsley, dispatched
to the Lords Danby and Lumley for drawing their
ItyflMB to this town. I received yours to-day, which being
£0bbath-day, I beg your pardon for brevity.

“ I was told they see the fires and burnings of those Rebels
at Edmbuigh ; this is the beginning of the discovery of the
Popish intrigue. God defend England from the French, and
hisjfighness the Prince of Orange from the bloody Popish
attempts !

" London s Published by J. Wells, St. Paul’s Alley, St.
Paul’s Churchyard, 1688.”

Tidings of William's landing filled the Scottish
Presbyterians with the wildest joy, and the magis-

THUMBIKJN.

{From the Museum of-the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland )

trates of Edinburgh, who but two years before
had been extravagant in their protestations to
Jgtnes VII., were aiqong the first to welcome the
invader; and the city filled fast with bands of
jubilant revolutionists, rendering it unsafe for all of
cavalier tenets to be within the walls. On the nth
of April, 1688, William land Mary were proclaimed
at the cross king and queen of Scotland, after an
illegally constituted Convention of the Estates,
which was attended by only thirty representatives,
declared that King James had forfeited all title to
the crown, thus making a vacancy. A great and
suddeU change now came over the realm. “ Men/ 1
says Dr. Chambers, 11 who had been lately in
danger of their lives for conscience* sake, or
starving in foreign lands, were now at the head
of affiritsl The Earl of Melville, Secretary of
State ; Crawford, President of Parliament ; Argyle,
res tored to tide and lands, and a Privy Coun-
iBor; Palrymple of Stair, Hume of Marchmont,
S > S» i rt of Goodtrees, and many other exiles,
NPpse bade from Holland, to resume prominent

positions in the public service at home; while
the instruments of the late unhappy Government
were either captives under suspicion, or living
terror-struck at their country houses. Common
people, who had been skulking in mosses from
Claverhouse’s dragoons, were now marshalled into
a regiment, and planted as a watch on the Perth*
and Forfar gentry. There were new figures in the
Privy Council, and none of them ecclesiastical.
There was a wholly new set of senators on the
bench of the Court of Session. It looked like a
sudden shift of scenes in a pantomime rather than
a series of ordinary occurrences.” For three days
and nights Edinburgh was a wild scene of pillage
and rapine. The palace was assailed, the chapel
royal sacked ; and the Duke of Gordon, on finding
that the rabble, drunk and maddened by wine and
spirits found in the cellars of cavalier families who
had fled, were wantonly firing on his sentinels,
drew up the drawbridge, to cut off all communi-
cation with the city ; but finding that his soldiers
were divided in their religious and political
opinions, and that a revolt was impending, he
called a council of officers to frustrate the attempt ;
and the Lieutenant-Governor, Colonel John Win-
ram, of Libei ton and the Inch House, Colonel of
the Scots Foot Guards in 1683, undertook to
watch the men, forty-four of whom it was deemed
necessary to strip of their uniforms and expel from
the fortress. In their place came thirty High
landers, on the 1 ith of November, and soon after
forty-five more, under Gordon of Midstrath.

By the Privy Council the Duke was requested,
as a Roman Catholic, to surrender his command
to the next senior Protestant officer; but he de-
clined, saying, “I am bound only to obey King
James VII.”

A few of the Life Guards and Greys, who had
quitted the Scottish army on its revolt, now reached
Edinburgh under the gallant Viscount Dundee,
and their presence served 'to support the spirits of
the Royalists, but the friends of the Revolution
brought in several companies of infantry, who were
concealed in the suburbs, and 6,000 Cameramans
marched in from the west, under standards in-
scribed, “ For Reformation according to the Word
of God,” below an open Bible. These men
nobly rejected all remuneration, saying, with one
voice, “We have come to serve our country.”
Their presence led to other conspiracies in the
garrison, and the Duke of Gordon had rather a
harassing time of it

The friends of William of Orange having formed
a plan for die assassination of Dundee and Sir
George Mackenzie of Roaehaugh, compelled them

gHataffcOu"*'

THE REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH.
- - ■■■ 1

jtnd all loyalists to quit the city. “ At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers— Guardsmen and Greys mingled— Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port ; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a soli-
tary roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.”

According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, “ Whither
go > ou ? ”

“Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,” was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameronians
beat to arms, and they came swarming out of their
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
action, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earls
of Tweeddale and Lothian appeared at the gate of
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender it
within four-and-twenry hours, and daringly offering
a year’s pay to every soldier who would desert him.

“ My lords,” said he, “without the express orders
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrender
this castle.”

By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke of
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declared
a traitor. He tossed them 1 me guineas to drink
the health of James VII., ad ing, with a laugh, “ I
would advise you not to proc lira men traitors who
wear the king’s coat till they ave turned it”

Under the highest penalties, all persons were now
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison,
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockade the
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were added
300 Highlanders under Aigyle. Out of this body
t f wre woe formed in one day two battalions of the
which still exist— the 25th, or old Edinburgh
regiment, which bean on its coloun the triple
ca# *k» with the motto, “ Nisi Dominus Frost »,”*

and the 26th,' or Cameronians, whose appoiMMta
bear the five-pointed mullet — die aimt*drmrir
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scot!
Brigade, from Holland, were on their inarch, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matten looked dalfepr and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now siwi^Mbor
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were^
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (formerly King’s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in &
supply of provisions, the
duke wrote King James
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.

The entire strength
of the garrison, includ-
ing officers and gentle,
men -volunteers, was
only eighty -six men,
who had to work
twenty-two pieces of
cannon (exclusive of
field pieces) ranging
from 42 to 1 2-pounders.

They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money,

FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBUMGH RE*
VOLUTION CLUR.

{S truck m 1751 in CommoauanRm
of the recovery of iktir R oU gi m
and Liberty by WtUiam mad
Mary tn t68B.)

and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard 1
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hope*
lessly invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
James’s safe arrival tn Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the v
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of'
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve codt
panies, all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolphcks with
which to form breastworks. All within the Castl e

who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly Mm
the want of medical attendance, till the duWi
family physician contrived to join ham, probably by
the postern.

On the 13th of March he heavily arhnonaded &§
western entrenchments, and by dint of del and
shell retarded the working parties; but GemMt
Mackay now formed a b att ery of iSfeadej •
the Highrigp, opposed to the npd locate eflt
the hft&moan. On the jid of April the mte
mmmd tbit the taae of GMfefc the siuttiit

EDINBURGH CASTLE. FRQ|I KIRKBRAEHEAD. {After Sleutr)

seat of the Byres of that ilk, was full of soldiers ;
he cannonaded it from the present mortar bat-
tfty, and did great execution. On the ist of April
a parley was asked by beat of drum, during
the funeral of Sir George Lockhart, who had been
assassinated by Chiesley of Dairy, and whose
muons were laid in the Greyfriars’ churchyard,
ftesh troops now came in, under Lieutenant-
Generals Sir John Lanier and James Douglas of
Qneensbeny.

Among these (according to the records of the
Hussars) were the Royal Scots Grey Dragoons,
forester's Cuirassiers (now 3rd Dragoon Guards;,
and the Prince Anne of Denmark's Dragoons (now I
4th Hussars), and to resist longer seemed more 1
than ever madness rather than chivalry.

A new battery was formed where the Register
Houle stands now, another of mortars in rear of
Heriot*a Hospital A breach was effected in the
western wall, but the steepness of the rock rendered
an assault impossible. 'Many bombs fell into the
Portsburgh, greatly to the terror of denizens there,
who found themselves between a cross fire. On
A* list surteen bombs exploded in the Castle, and
Me blew up the stone steps of the chapel At this
Ape mow was foiling heavily till it was two feet
and it was industriously saved by the garrison
forwetoT’ JJy foe sand every building in the place
'Was ro o fl ess, yet foe now tattered and hal&clad
atari nma^ guLs day and night,

m m and hunger, foe gallant duke,

"Sfo fem keeping their enfou-
*Mi he beat a parley, asking

vaddog

entrench himself under the half-moon, though
sorely impeded by musketry, and four days after
the besiegers opened with showers of hand-grenades
from their mortar batteries. Colonel Winram pro-
posed a sally, to which the duke objected. John
Grant, a volunteer, daringly went out in the night
to discover if there was any hope of relief, and
two days after he signalled from the Lang Gate,
“None!"

There were scarcely men left now to relieve the
guards, and still less to man the breaches ; and
| those who were most effective were on sentinel duty
from ten at night till three in the morning. The
1 wells now were completely dried up, and for “ ten
1 consecutive days this handful of brave fellows,
environed as they were by a regular British army,
subsisted on dry bread and salt herrings, eaten raw,
for they were now without other food. Their
ammunition was nearly expended, and the duke,
despairing of relief from King James in Ireland,
beat a parley.”

Attired in his full uniform as a Scottish officer of
James VII., and wearing the order of the Thistle,
the duke conferred with Major Somerville at foe
edge of the fosse ; but their interview ended in
nothing, so foe bitter cannonade began again.
That night, about twelve o'clock, a strong column of
infantry crept up the north side of the Castle Hill,
till a sharp fire from the drove it down

to the margin of foe loch ; but next morning it
feiriy effected a lodgment across foe esptofo
under cover of foe woolpacks. Them were only
nineteen men in foe MM/ ra f at foit time, ytt

foojT worn chertwn g loudly,

41 kfog dwtt mpor fos sfoi

Edinburgh CaatlfcJ

THE CASTLE UNDER REPAIR.

*5

For nearly four-and-twenty hours on both sides the siege. Though emaciated by long toil, starva-
the fire was maintained with fury, but slackened tion, and gangrened wounds, the luckless soldiers
about daybreak. “In the Castle only one man were cruelly treated by the rabble of die city,
was killed— a gunner, whom a cannon ball had The capitulation was violated; Colonel Winram
cut in two, through a gun-port, but many were was seized as a prisoner of war, and the was
weltering in their blood behind the woolpacks placed under close arrest in his own house, in
and in the trenches, where the number of slain Blair’s Close, but was released on giving his parole

INNER GATEWAY OF THE CASTLE.

amounted to 500 men.” This enumeration pro- not to serve against illiam of Orange. He died
bably includes wounded. in the year 1716, at his residence in the citadel of

On the 13th of June the duke pulled down the Leith,
king’s flag, and hoisted a white one, surrendering, The Castle was once more fully repaired, and
°n terms, by which it was stipulated that the presented nearly the same aspect in all its details
soldiers should have their full liberty, and Colonel as we find it to-day. The alterations were con-
Winram have security for his life and estates \ ducted under John Drury (chief of the Scottish
while Major Somerville, at the head of 200 Engineers), who gave his name to one of the ba*
bayonets, took all the posts, except the citadel tions on the south; and Mylnc’s Mount, another
The duke drew up his forlorn band, now reduced to on the north, is so named from his assistant, Robert
fifty officers and men, in the ruined Grand Parade, Mylne, king’s master-mason and hereditary master
and than king them for their loyal services, gave each gunner of the fortress ; and it was after this last
a small sum to convey him home; and as hands were siege that the round turrets, or tichavguditSi were
•haken all round, many men wept, ahd so ended added to the bastions.

*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.^

[Edinburgh

About this time a strange story went abroad
concerning the spectre of Dundee; the terrible
y& handsome Claverhouse, in his flowing wig and
glittering breastplate, appearing to his friend the
Bait of Balcarres, then a prisoner in the Castle, and
awaiting tidings of the first battle with keen anxiety.

About daybreak on the morning when Killie-
crankie was fought and lost by the Williaraites, the
spectre of Dundee is said to have come to Bal-
carres, and drawing back the curtains of his bed,
to have looked at him steadfastly and sorrowfully.

“ After this 19 (says C. K. Sharpe, in a note to
Law’s “Memorials”), “it moved towards the
mantelpiece, remained there for a short time in a
leaning posture, and then walked out of the
chamber without uttering one word. Lord Balcarres,
in great surprise, though not suspecting that what
he saw was an apparition, called out repeatedly on
his friend to stop, but received no answer, and
subsequently learned that at the very moment the
shadow stood before him Dundee had breathed
his last near the field of Killiecrankie.”

CHAPTER VIL
EDINBURGH CASTLE ( concluded ).

The Torture of Neville Payne — Jacobite Plots— Entombing the Regalia— Project for Surprising the Fortress— Right of Sanctuary Abolished—
Lord qrummond's Plot— Some Jacobite Prisoners— “ Rebel Ladies”— James Macgregor— The Castle Vaults— Attempts at Escape— Fears
as to the Destruction of the Crown, Sword, and Sceptre— Crown- room opened in 1794— Again in 1817, and the Regalia brought forth— Mons
Meg— General Description of the whole Castle.

Among the many unfortunates who have pined as
prisoners of state in the Castle, few suffered more
than Henry Neville Payne, an English gentleman,
•who was accused of being a Jacobite conspirator.
About the time of the battle of the Boyne, when
tthe Earl of Annandale, Lord Ross, Sir Robert
Montgomerie of Skelmorlie, Robert Fergusson
“ the plotter,” and others, were forming a scheme
an Scotland for the -restoration of King James,
Payne had been sent there in connection with
•it, but was discovered in Dumfriesshire, seized,
And sent to Edinburgh. Lockhart, the Solicitor-
•General for Scotland, who happened to be in
London, coolly wrote to the Earl of Melville,
Secretary of State at Edinburgh, saying, “ that there
was no doubt that he (Payne) knew as much as
would hang a thousand ; but except you put him'
•to the torture, he will shame you all. Pray you, put
>him in such hands as will have no pity on him!”*
The Council, however, had anticipated these
.amiable instructions, and Payne had borne torture
to extremity, by boot and thumb-screws, without
•confessing anything. On the ioth of December,
under express instruction signed by King William,
and countersigned by Lord Melville, the process
was to be repeated; and this was done in the
presence of the Earl of Crawford, “ with all the
severity,” he reported, “that was consistent with
humanity, even unto that pitch that we could not
preserve life and have gone further, but without the
least success. He was so manly and resolute under
lik Bufferings that such of the Council as were not

acquainted with the evidence, were brangled, and
began to give him charity that he might be innocent.
It was surprising that flesh and blood could, without
fainting, endure the heavy penance he was in for
two hours.” This unfortunate Englishman, in his
maimed and shattered condition, was now thrown
into a vault of the Castle, where none had access
to him save a doctor. Again and again it was repre-
sented to the “ humane and pious King William ”
that to keep Payne in prison “ without trial was con-
trary to law;” but notwithstanding repeated petitions
for trial and mercy, in defiance of the Bill of
Rights, William allowed him to languish from year
to year for ten years ; until, on the 4th of February,
1701, he was liberated, in broken health, poverty,
and premature old age, without the security for
reappearance, which was customary in such cases.

Many plots were formed by the Jacobites — one
about 1695, by Fraser of Beaufort (the future
Lovat), and another in ' 1703, to surprise the
Castle, as being deemed the key to the whole
kingdom — but without success ; and soon after the
Union, in 1707, its walls witnessed that which was
deemed “ the last act of that national tragedy,” the
entombing of the regalia, which, by the Treaty,
“ are never more to be used, but kept constantly
in the Castle of Edinburgh.”

In presence of Colonel Stuart, the constable ; Sir
James Mackenzie, Clerk of the Treasury; William
Wilson, Deputy-Clerk of Session — the crown,
sceptre, sword of stale, and Treasurer’s rod, were
solemnly deposited in their usual receptacle, the
crown-room, on the 26th of March. “Animated
by the same glow of patriotism that fired the

• M«hiH>*« CowgpQa du c a.

Edinburgh CuUe.] ABOLITION OF THE RIGHT OF SANCTUARY. <f r

bosom of Belhaven, the Earl Manschal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at this degrading ceremony, and was repre-
sented by his proxy, Wilson, the Clerk of Session,
who took a long protest descriptive of the regalia,
and declaring that they should remain within the
said crown-room, and never be removed from it
without due intimation being made to the Earl
Marischal. A copy of this protest, beautifully illu-
minated, was then deposited with the regalia, a
linen cloth was spread over the whole, and the
great oak chest was secured by three ponderous
locks; and there for a hundred and ten years,
amid silence, obscurity, and dust, lay the crown
that had sparkled on the brows of Bruce, on those
of the gallant Jameses, and on Mary's auburn hair
— the symbols of Scotland’s elder days, for which
so many myriads of the loyal, the brave, and the
noble, had laid down their lives on the battle-field
—neglected and forgotten.”

Just four months after this obnoxious ceremony,
and while the spirit of antagonism to it rose high in
the land, a gentleman, with only thirty men, under-
took to surprise the fortress, which had in it now a
party of but thirty-five British soldiers, to guard the
equivalent money, ^400,000, and a great quantity
of Scottish specie, which had been called in to be
coined anew. In the memoirs of Kerr of Kerrsland
we are told that the leader of this projected surprise
was to appear with his thirty followers, all well
armed, at noon, on the esplanade, which at that
hour was the chief lounge of gay and fashionable
people. Among these they were to mingle, but
drawing as near to the barrier gate as possible.
While affecting to inquire for a friend in the Castle,
the leader was to shoot the sentinel ; the report of
his pistol was to be the signal on which his 1 len
were to draw their swords, and secure the bridge,
when a hundred men who were to be concealed in
a cellar near were to join them, tear down the
Union Jack, and hoist the colours of James VIII.
in its place. The originator of this daring scheme
— whose name never transpired — having commu-
nicated it to the well-known intriguer, Kerr of j
Kerrsland, who advised him to defer it till the (
chevalier, then expected, was off the coast, and '
secretly gave information to the Government, which, '
however, left the fortress in the same defenceless j
state. Again, in 1708, another plan to seize it was (
organised among the Hays, Keiths, and Murrays, *
whom the now repentant Cameronians promised to
join with 5*000 horse and ao,ooo foot, to the end
that, at all hazards, the Union should be dissolved.

On tidings of this, the Earl of Leven, governor j
of the Castle, was at once dispatched from London

to put it in a state of defence ; but the great
of arms, the cannon, stores, and 495 barrels of
powder, which had been placed there in 1706, had
all been removed to England. “But,” says a.
writer, “ this was only in the spirit of centralisation,
which has since been brought to such perfection.”

In 1708, before the departure of the fleet of
Admiral de Fourbin with that expedition which the
appearance of Byng’s squadron caused to fail, a-
plan of the Castle had been laid, at Versailles,
before a board of experienced engineer officers,
who unanimously concluded that, with hi$ troops,,
cannon, and mortars, M. de Gace would carry the
place in a few hours. A false attack was to be
made on the westward, while three battalions were
to storm the outworks on the east, work their
way under the half-moon, and carry the citadel.
Two Protestant bishops were then to have crowned
the prince in St. Giles's church as James VIII.
“ The equivalent from England being there,” says-
an officer of the expedition, “ would have been a
great supply to us for raising men (having about
400 officers with us who had served in the warn
in Italy), and above 100 chests in money.”

Had M. de Gace actually appeared before the
fortress, its capture would not have cost him much
trouble, as Kerrsland tells us that there were not
then four rounds of powder in it for the batteries !

On the 14th of December, 1714, the Castle was>
by a decree of the Court of Session, deprived of
its ancient ecclesiastical right of sanctuary, derived
from and retained since the monastic institution
of David I., in 1 1 28. Campbell of Bumbank, the
storekeeper, being under caption at the instance of
a creditor, was arrested by a messenger-at-arms,
on which Colonel Stuart, the governor, remember-
ing the right of sanctuary, released Campbell, ex-
pelled the official, and closed the barriers. Upon
this the creditor petitioned the court, asserting that
the right of sanctuary was lost. In reply it wag'
asserted that the Castle was not disfranchised, and
“that the Castle of Edinburgh, having anciently
been castrum pucllarum, was originally a religious
house, as well as the abbey of Holyrood.” But
the Court decided that it had no privilego of
sanctuary “to hinder the king’s letters, and ordained
Colonel Stuart to deliver Bumbank to a messenger.”
Bumbank was a very debauched character, who is
frequently mentioned in Penicuick's Satirical poems,
and was employed by “Nicoll Muschat of iU
memorie,” to seduce the unfortunate wife whom he
afterwards murdered where the cairn stood in the
Queen’s Park.

When the severities exercised by George I. upon
the Scottish Jacobites brought about t h e insu r rectionr

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Edinburgh Castle.

I

of 17159 and the Castle was filled with disaffected abreast, had been constructed, and all was prepared
men of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time when the plot was marred by — a lady ! '

when its garrison was the 25th, or old regiment of In the exultation he felt at the approaching
Edinburgh, was formed by Lord John Drummond, capture, and the hope he had of lighting the beacon
ton of the Earl of Perth, with eighty men, mostly which was to announce to Fife and the far north
Highlan ders, and all of resolute courage. All these that the Castle was won, Ensign Arthur unfolded
— among whom was a Captain McLean, who had the scheme to his brother, a physician in the city,
lost a leg at Killiecrankie, and an Ensign Arthur, who volunteered for the enterprise, but most pru-
tate of the Scots Guards — were promised commis- dently told his wife of it, and she, alarmed for his
sions under King James, and 100 guineas each, if safety, at once gave information to the Lord Justice

royal lodging and

the event succeeded ; and at that crisis — when Mar
was about to fight the battle of Sheriffmuir — it
might have put him in possession of all Scotland.
Drummond contrived to suborn four of the garrison
—a sergeant, Ainslie, to whom he promised a
lieutenancy, a corporal, who was to be made an
ensign, and -two privates, who got bribes in money.

On the night of the 8th September, when the
troops marched from the city to fight the Earl of
Mar, the attempt was made. The chosen time,
near twelve o'clock, was dark and stormy, and the
modus operandi was to be by escalading the western
walls, near the ancient arched postern. A ladder,
equipped with great hooks to fix it to the cope of
.the bastion, and calculated to admit four men

HALF-MOON BATTERY.

Clerk, Sir Adam Cockbrum of Ormiston, who in-
stantly put himself in communication with Colonel
Stuart. Thus, by the time the conspirators were
at the foot of the wall the whole garrison was
under arms, the sentinels were doubled, and the
ramparts patrolled.

The first party of forty men, led by the resolute
Lord Drummond and the wooden-legged McLean,
had reached the foot of the wall unseen ; already
the ladder had been secured by Sergeant Ainslie,
and the escalade was in the act of ascending, with
pistols in their girdles and swords in their teeth,
when a Lieutenant Lindesay passed with his patrol,
and instantly gave an alarm ! The ladder and all
on it fell heavily on the rocks below. A sentinel

Edinburgh Castle. J

fired his musket; the startled Jacobites fled and
dispersed, but, the city gates being .shut, many of
them were captured, among others old McLean,
who made a desperate resistance in the West Port
w ith a musket and bayonet. Many who rolled
down the rocks to the roadway beneath were
severely injured, and taken by the City Guard. A
sentinel was bound hand and foot and thrown into
the Dark Pit (one of the lowest dungeons on the

59

Among these the Edinburgh CouratU records, cm
the 10th of January, 1743, the demise therein of
Macintosh, of Borlum, in his 80th year, after a
captivity of fifteen years, for participation in the
rising of 1715; and for twelve months, in 1746,
there were confined in a small, horrid, and un<
healthy chamber above the portcullis, used for
many a year as “ the black hole ” of the garrison,
the Duchess of Perth and Viscountess Strathallani

JACOBITE PRISONERS.

THE CROWN-ROOM, EDINBL’JUIH CASTLE.

south) where he confessed the whole plot; the
corporal was mercilessly flogged ; and Sergeant
Ainslie was hanged over the postern gate, Colonel
Stuart was dismissed ; and Brigadier Grant, whose
regiment was added to the garrison, was appointed
temporary governor.

From this period, with the exception of a species
of blockade in 1745, to be related in its place,
the history of the Castle is as uneventful as that of
the Tower of London, save a visit paid to it in the
time of George I., by Yussuf Jumati, General and
Governor of Damascus.

Many unfortunate Jacobites have suffered most
protracted periods of imprisonment within its walls.

with her daughters, the Ladies Mary and Amelia,
who were brought in by an escort of twenty dragoons,
under a ruffianly quartermaster, who treated them
with every indignity, even to tearing the wedding-
ring from Lady Strathallani finger, and stripping her
daughters of their clothes. During the long year
these noble ladies were in that noisome den above
the gate, they were without female attendance, and
under the almost hourly surveillance of the ser-
geants of the guard. The husband of the countess
was slain at the head of his men on the field <Sf
Culloden, where the Jacobite clans were overcome
by neither skill nor valour, but the sheer force of
numbers and starvation.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH CEdinbu*h cua*

Among other “rebel ladies” confined in the
Castle was the Lady Ogilvie, who made her escape
in the disguise of a laundress, a costume brought
by Miss Balmain, who remained in her stead, and
who was afterwards allowed to go free.

In 1752 the Castle received a remarkable
prisoner, in the person of James Mhor Macgregor
of Bohaldie, the eldest of the four sons of Rob
Roy, who had lost his estate for the part he had
taken in the recent civil strife, “and holding a
major’s commission under the old Pretender.”
Robin Oig Macgregor, his younger brother, having
'conceived that he would make his fortune by
carrying off an heiress — no uncommon event then
in the Highlands — procured his assistance, and
with a band of Macgregors, armed with target,
pistol, and claymore, came suddenly from the
wilds of Arrochar, and surrounding the house
of Edinbellie, in Stirlingshire, the abode of a
wealthy widow of only nineteen, they muffled her
in a plaid, and bore her off in triumph to the
heath-clad hills, where Rowardennan looks down
upon the Gairloch and Glenfruin. There she was
married to Robin, who kept her for three months
in defiance of several parties of troops sent to
recover her.

From his general character James Mhor was
considered as the chief instigator of this outrage,
thus the vengeance of the Crown was directed
against him rather than Robin, “ who was con-
sidered but a half-wild Higlilandman ; ” and in
virtue of a warrant of fugitation issued, he was
arrested and tried. The Lords of Justiciary
found him guilty, but in consequence of some
doubts, or informality, sentence of death was
delayed until the ,20th of November, 1752. In
consequence of an expected rescue — meditated by
Highlanders who served in the city as caddies,
chairmen, and city guards, among whom Mac-
gregor’s bravery at Trestonpans, seven years be-
fore, made him popular — he was removed by a
warrant from the Lord Justice Clerk, addressed
to. General Churchill, from the Tolbooth to the
Castle, there to be kept in close confinement till
his fatal day arrived.

But it came to pass, that on the 16th of No-
vember, One of his daughters — a tall and very
handsome girl — had the skill and courage to dis-
guise herself as a lame old cobbler, and was
ushered into his prison, bearing a pair of newly-
soled shoes in furtherance of her scheme. The
sentinels in the adjacent corridors heard Lady
Bohaldie scolding the supposed cobbler with con-
siderable asperity for some time, with reference to
the indifferent manner in which his work had been

executed. Meanwhile her husband and their
daughter were quickly changing costumes, and the
former came limping forth, grumbling and swearing
at his captious employers. “ An old and tattered
great-coat enveloped him ; he had donned a leather
apron, a pair of old shoes, and ribbed stockings.
A red night-cap was drawn to his ears, and a
broad hat slouched over his eyes.” He quitted
the Castle undiscovered, and left the city without
delay; but his flight was soon known, the city
gates were shut, the fortress searched, and every
man who had been on duty was made a prisoner.
A court-martial, consisting of thirteen officers, sat
for five days in the old barracks on this event,
and its proceedings ended in cashiering two
officers who had commanded the guards, reducing
to the ranks the sergeant who kept the key of
Bohaldie’s room, and flogging a warder; but
Bohaldie escaped to France, where he died about
the time of the French Revolution in extreme old
age. r In 1754 Robin Oig was executed in the
Grassmarket, for the abduction of J ean Kay, the
widow : the charge was far from being sufficiently
proved.

In April, 1751, Thomas Ogilvie of Eastmilne
(who had been a Jacobite prisoner since 1749) was
killed when attempting to escape from the Castle,
by a net tied to an iron ring. He fell and fractured
his skull on the rock facing Livingstone’s Yards
— the old tilting ground, on the south side of the
Castle rock. This was a singularly unfortunate
man in his domestic relations. His eldest son was
taken prisoner at Carlisle, and executed there with
the barbarity then usual. His next son, Thomas,
was poisoned by his wife, the famous and beautiful
Katherine Naime (who escaped), but whose para-
mour, the third son, Lieutenant Patrick Ogilvie of
the 89th or old Gordon Highlanders (disbanded
in 1765), was publicly hanged in the Grassmarket

In July, 1753, the last of those who were tried
for loyalty to the Hoifse of Stuart was placed in
the Castle — Archibald Macdonald, son of the aged
Cole Macdonald of Barrisdale, who died a captive
there in 1750. Arraigned as a traitor, this unfor-
tunate gentleman behaved with great dignity before
the court ; he admitted that he was the person
accused, but boldly denied the treason, and as-
serted his loyalty to his lawful king. “On the
30th March he was condemned to die; but the
vengeance of the Government had already been
glutted, and after receiving various successive re-
prieves, young Barrisdale was released, and per-
mitted to return to the Western Isles.”

From this period till nearly the days of Waterloo
the Castle vaults were invariably used in every war

'Edinburgh Cuttle.]

THE REGALIA.

7i

as a receptacle for French prisoners. They are j George
deep, dark, and horrible dtftigeons, but many of
the names and initials of the luckless inmates, and
even the games with which they sought to lighten
their tedious days, were long discernible on the
walls and rock. So many as forty men sometimes
slept in one vault. Immediately below the room
in which James VI. was bom is one curiously-
arched dungeon, partly — like others — excavated
from - the solid rock, and retaining an iron staple,
to which, doubtless, the limbs of many an unfor-
tunate creature were chained in “the good old
times ” romancists write so glibly of. The origin
of all these vaults is lost in antiquity.

There prisoners have made many desperate, but
in the end always futile, attempts to escape — par-
ticularly in 1761 and in 1811. On the former
occasion one was dashed to pieces ; on the latter,
a captain and forty-nine men got out of the fortress
in the night, by cutting a hole in the bottom of
the parapet, below the place commonly called the
Devil’s Elbow, and letting themselves down by a
rope, and more would have got out had not the
nearest sentinel fired his musket. One fell and
was killed 200 feet below. The rest were all
re-captured on the Glasgow Road. j

In the Grand Parade an octagon tower of con-
siderable height gives access to the strongly vaulted
crown room, in which the Scottish regalia are
shown, and wherein they were so long hidden ,

from the nation, that they were generally believed ! redress. The joy was therefore extreme when, the
to have been secretly removed to England and ponderous lid of the chest having been forced open.,
destroyed ; and the mysterious room, which was 1 at the expense of some time and labour, the regalia
never opened, became a source of wonder to the j were discovered lying at the bottom covered with
soldiers, and of superstition to many a Highland linen cloths, exactly as they had been left in ijoy,
sentinel when pacing on his lonely post at night. being no years before, since they had been surren-

On the 5th of November, 1794, in prosecuting , dered by William the ninth Earl Marischal to the
a search for some lost Parliamentary records, custody of the Earl of Glasgow, Treasurer- Deputy
the crown-room was opened by the Lieutenant- , of Scotland. The reliques were passed from hand

IV., issued * a warrant to the Scottish
officers of state and other officials, to open the
crown-room, in order that the existence of the
regalia might be ascertained, and measures taken
for their preservation.

In virtue of this warrant there met, among
others, in the governor's house, the Lord President
of the Court of Session, the Lord Justice Clerk, the
Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court, the
Lord Provost, the Commander-in-chief, and Sir
Walter Scott, whose emotions on this occasion
may be imagined. ;

“ It was with feelings of no common anxiety that
the commissioners, having read their warrant, pro-
ceeded to the crown-room, and, having found all
there in the state in which it had been left in 1794,
commanded the king's smith, who was in attendance,
to force open the great chest, the keys of which had
been sought for in vain. The general impression
that the regalia had been secretly removed weighed
heavily on the hearts of all while the labour pro-
ceeded. The chest seemed to return a hollow and
empty sound to the strokes of the hammer j and
even those whose expectations had been most
sanguine felt at the moment the probability of bitter
disappointment, and could not but be sensible that,
should the result of the search confirm those fore-
bodings, it would only serve to show that a national
affront, an injury had been sustained, for which it
might be difficult, or rather impossible, to obtain

Governor and other commissioners. It was dark,
being then windowless, and filled with foul air. In
the grated chimney lay the ashes of the last fire
and a cannon ball, which still lies where it had
fallen in some past siege ; the dust of eighty-seven
years lay on the paved floor, and the place looked

to hand, and greeted with the affectionate reverence
which emblems so venerable, restored to public
view after the slumber of more than a hundred
years, were so peculiarly calculated to excite. The
discovery was instantly communicated to the public
by the display of the royal standard, and was

grim and desolate. Major Drummond repeatedly greeted by the shouts of the soldiers in garrison,
shook the oak chest ; it returned no sound, was and a vast multitude assembled on the Castle hill ;
supposed to be empty, and stronger in the hearts ! indeed the rejoicing was so general and sincere as
of *e Scots waxed the bdief that the Government, I plainly to show that, however altered in other
in wicked policy, had destroyed its contents ; but 1 respects, the people of Scotland had lost nothing of
murmurs arose from time to time, as the vears went ' that national enthusiasm which formerly had dis-
°n, and a crown, called that of Scotland, was ac- 1 played itself in grief for the loss of those emblematic'
tually shown in the Tower of London ! ! honours, and now was expressed m joy for their

At length, in 1817, ten years after the death j recovery."
of Cardinal York, the Prince Regent, afterwards j Covered with glass and secured in a strong iron

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Pdfatoi) iGu*.

cage, the regalia now lie on a white marble table
In the ciown-room, together with four other me-
morials of the House of Stuart, which belonged
to the venerable Cardinal York, and were deposited
there by order of King William in 1830. These
ate the golden collar of the Garter presented to
James VI. by Elizabeth, with its appendage the
George; the order of St Andrew, cut on an onyx
and having on the reverse the badge of the Thistle,
Which opens with a secret spring, revealing a beau-

The ancient crown worn by Robert L and his
successors underwent no change till it was closed
with four arches by order of James V., and it is
thus described in the document deposited with the
Regalia in the crown-room, in 1707
“The crown is of pure gold, enriched with
many precious stones, diamonds, pearls, and cu-
rious enamellings. It is composed of a fillet which
goes round the head, adorned with twenty-two
large precious stones. Above the great circle there

i

THE RE(*AL1A OF SCOTLAND. {Frvm a Painting by ALx. Gfddes.)

riful miniature of Anne of Denmark, and, lastly, ' is a small one formed with twenty points, adorned
the ancient ruby ring which the kings of Scotland with the like number of diamonds and sapphires
wore at their coronation. It was last used by the alternately, and the points tipped with great pearls;
unhappy Charles I., and, after all its wanderings the upper circle is elevated with ten crosses floree,
with his descendants, is now in its old receptacle, each adorned in the centre with a great diamond
together with the crown, sceptre, sword of state, betwixt four great pearls placed in the cross, one
and the golden mace of Lord High Treasurer. and one, and these crosses floree are interchanged
The mace, like the sceptre, is - surmounted by a with ten high fleurs de lys t all alternately with the
great crystal beryl, stones doubtless of vast anti- great pearls below, which top the points of the
quity. The “great beryl ” was an amulet which second small circle. From the upper circle proceed
had made part of the more ancient sceptre of the four arches, adorned with enamelled figures, which
Scottish kings, and such beryls are supposed by meet and close at the top surmounted by a monde
some to have been the official badge of the arch- of gold, enamelled blue semee, powdered with stars,
Druid. Such are still known among the Highlanders crossed and enamelled with a large cross patee,
by the title of Clach-bhuai, or “stone of power.” | adorned in the extremities with great pearls, and

tlfiBhaqjh Gmhb

Old and new Edinburgh

OBBkmedwiih otter four in the angles. The tiar, or
iMOttt. «U of purple velvet ; but, in 1685, it got a
ep of crimson velvet, adorned with four plates of
Cali. OH each of them a great pearl, and the bonnet I
it tinned up with ermine. Upon the lowest circle
there are eight small holes, two and two, on the
Soot quarters of the crown, which were for lacing
nr tying thereto diamonds or precious stones.
The crown is 9 inches in diameter, 27 inches
about, and in height from the under circle to the
top of the cross patee 6 j inches.

“The sceptre: its stem or stalk, which is of
Silver double overgilt, is two feet long, of a hexagon
form, with three buttons or knobs; betwixt the
first button and the second is the handle of a
hexagon form, furling in the middle and plain.
Betwixt the second button and the third are three
sides engraven. From the third button to the
capital the three sides under the statues are plain,
and on the other three are antique engravings. Upon
the top of the stalk is an antique capital of leaves
embossed, the abacus whereof arises round the
prolonged stem, surrounded with three little statues;
between every two statues arises a rullion in the
form of a dolphin ; above the rullions and statues
stands another hexagon button, with oak leaves
under every comer, and down it a crystal (beryl ?)
globe. The whole sceptre is in length 34 inches.”
The statues are those of the Virgin, St. Andrew,
and St James. The royal initials, J. R. V. are
engraved under them. If James V. had this
sceptre made, the metallic settings of the great
beryl belong to some sceptre long anterior to
his time.

“ The sword is in length 5 feet ; the handle and
pommel are of silver overgilt, in length 15 inches.
The pommel is round and somewhat flat on the two
sides. The traverse or cross of the sword, which
is of silver overgilt, is in length 17 J inches; its
form is like two dolphins with their heads joining
and their tails ending in acorns; the shell is
hanging down towards the point of the sword,
formed like an escalop flourished, or rather like
a green oak-leaf. On the blade of the sword
are indented with gold these letters — Julius II. P.
The scabbard is of crimson velvet, covered with
silver wrought in philagram-work into branches of
the oak-tree leaves and acorns/’ Such are the
^Scottish regalia, which, since the deatvtyction of
those of England by Cromwell, are the ady ancient
regal emblems in Great Britain.

The sword of state is of an earlier <$^|^*he
rod of the sceptre, being presented
Pope Julius to James IV. With a conMMfe^^
nt 1507. The keys of St Peter figure prmh^jMly

among the filagree work. After the fall of the Castle
of Dunottar, in 1651, the belt of the sword became
an heirloom in the family of Ogilvie of Barras.

The great pearl in the apex of the crown is
alleged to be the same which in 1620 was found
in the burn of Kellie, a tributary of the Ythan
in Aberdeenshire, and was “ so large and beautiful
that it was esteemed the best that had at any time
been found in Scotland.’ 1 Sir Thomas Menzies,
Provost of Aberdeen, obtaining this precious jewel,
presented it to James VI., who in requital “gave
him twelve or fourteen chaldron of victuals about
Dunfermline, and the custom of certain merchant
goods during his life.” *

Before quitting the Castle of Edinburgh, it is im-
possible to omit some special reference to Mons
Meg — that mighty bombard which is thirteen feet
long and two feet three and a half inches within the
bore, and which was long deemed by the Scots a
species of palladium, the most ancient cannon in
Europe, except one in Lisbon, and a year older
than those which were made for Mahomet II.
Not a vestige of proof can be shown for the popular
| error that this gun was forged at Mons, while un-
varying tradition, supported by very strong corro-
borative evidence, proves that she was formed by
Scottish artisans, by order of James II., when he
besieged the rebellious Douglases in the castle
of Thrieve, in Galloway, during 1455. He posted
his artillery at the Three Thoms of the Carlinwark,
one of which is still surviving ; but their fire proving
ineffective, a smith named M'Kim, and his sons,
offered to construct a more efficient piece of ord-
nance. Towards this the inhabitants of the vicinity
contributed each a gaud, or iron bar. Tradition,
which never varied, indicated the place where it was
forged, a mound near the Three Thoms, and when
the road was formed there, that mound was dis-
covered to be a mass of cinders and the iron ddbris
of a great forge. To this hour the place where the
great gun was posted is named Knock-cannon. Only
two of Meg’s bullets were discharged before Thrieve
surrendered, and it is remarkable that both have
been found there. “The first,” says the New
Statistical Account , “was, towards the end of the
last century, picked out of the well and delivered to
Gordon of Greenlaw. The second was discovered
in 1841, by the tenant of Thrieve, when removing
an accumulation of rubbish.” It lay in a line direct
from Knock-cannon to the breach in the wall To
reward M‘Kim James bestowed upon him the
forfeited lands of Mollance. The smith is said to
have named the gun after his wife ; and the coo-

jdSobmgii C«*da.l

MONS MEG.

«

75

traction of the name from Mollance to Monce, or
Mans Meg, was quite natural to the Scots, who |
sink the l’s in all similar words. The balls still
preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh, piled on
each side of the gun, are exactly similar to those
found in Thrieve, and are of Galloway granite,
from the summit of the Binnan Hill, near the
Carlinwark.* Andrew Symson, whose description
of Galloway was written 180 years ago, records
“that in the isle of Thrieve, the great gun, called
Mounts Meg , was wrought and made/' This,
though slightly incorrect as to actual spot, being
written so long since, goes to prove the Scottish
origin of the gun, which bears a conspicuous place
in all the treasurer’s accounts ; and of this pedigree
of the gun Sir Walter Scott was so convinced that,
as he wrote, “ henceforth all conjecture must be set
aside.” In 1488 the gun was employed at the siege
of Dumbarton, then held for James HI. by his
adherents In 1497, when James IV. invaded
England in the cause of Perkin Warbeck, he con-
veyed it with his other artillery on a new stock
made at St Leonard’s Craig; and the public
accounts mention the sum paid to those who
brought “ hame Monse and the other artailzene
from Dalkeith.” It was frequently used during the
civil war in 1571, and two men died of their exer-
tion in dragging it from the Blackfnars Yard to the
Castle On that occasion payment was made to a
person through whose roof one of the bullets had
fallen m mistake. In Cromwell’s list of captured
guns, in 1650, mention is made of “the great iron
murderer, Meg and Ray, in his “ Observations ”
on Scotland eleven years after, mentions the “ great
old iron gun which they call Mounts Meg, and
some ‘ Meg of Berwick.* ” A demi-bastion near
the Scottish gate there bears, or bore, the name of
Meg’s Mount, which in those days was the term for
a battery. Another, in Stirling, bore the same
name ; hence we may infer that the gun has been
in both places. It was stupidly removed in mistake,
among unserviceable guns, to the Tower of London
in 1758, where it was shown till 1829, when, by the
patriotic exertions of Sir Walter Scott, it was sent
home to Edinburgh, and escorted from Leith back
to its old place in the Castle by three troops of
cavalry and the 73rd or Perthshire regiment, with
a hand of pipers playing at the head of the pro-
cession.

We are now in a position to take a brief but
comprehensive view of the whole Castle, with
which we have hitherto dealt in detail, and though
we must go over the same ground, we shall do.so at

so rapid a rate that such repetition as is un-
avoidable will be overlooked. In the present
day the Castle is entered by a barrier of pali-
sades, beyond which are a deep ditch and draw-
bridge protected by a tete-de-pont, flanked out ahd
defended by cannon. Within are two guard-
houses, the barrier and the main, the former
a mean-looking edifice near which once stood a
grand old entrance-gate, having many rich sculp-
tures, an entablature, and a pediment rising from
pilasters. Above the bridge rises the great half-
moon battery 61 1573, and the eastern tautain
wall, which includes an ancient peel with a corbelled
rampart The path, which millions of armed men
must have trod, winds round the northern side of
the rock, passing three gateways, the inner of which
is a deep-mouthed archway wherein two iron
portcullises once hung. This building once termi-
nated in a crenelated square tower, but was some
years ago converted into a species of state prison,
and black-hole for the garrison; and therein, in
1792, Robert Watt and David Downie, who were
sentenced to death for treason, were confined ;
and therein, in times long past and previous to-
these, pined both the Marquis and Earl of Argyle,
and many of high rank but of less note, down
to 1747 -

Above the arch are two sculptured hounds, the
supporters of the Duke of Gordon, governor in
1 688, and between these is the empty panel
from which Cromwell cast down the royal arms
in 1650. Above it is a pediment and little cornice
between the triglyphs of which may be traced
alternately the star and crowned heart of the
Regent Morton. Beyond this arch, on the left, are
the steps ascending to the citadel, the approaches
to which are defended by loopholes for cannon
and musketry. On the right hand is a gun battery,
named from John Duke of Argyle, commander-
in -chief in Scotland in 1715 ; below it is Robert
Mylne’s battery, built in 1689 ; and on the acclivity
of the steep hill are a bomb-proof powder maga-
zine, erected m 1746, the ordnance office, and
the house of the governor and storekeeper, an
edifice erected apparently in the reign of Queen
Anne, having massive walls and wainscoted apart-
ments. In the former is a valuable collection of
fire-arms of every pattern, from the wheel-lock
petronel of the fifteenth century do*n to the latest
rifled arms of precision.

There, also, is the armoury, formed for die
reception of 30,000 rifle muskets, several ancient
brass howitzers, several hundred coats of Mack mail
(most of which are from the arsenal of the knight*
of Malta), some forty stand of colours, belonging;

* 14 Hitfovy of Gdkmay.'

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

' 1 * ■

M WHiad Scottish regiments, and various weapons
-final the field Of CuUoden, particularly the Doune
•tad pistols, of beautiful workmanship, worn by
gfighland gentlemen.

Near (bis rises the Hawk Hill, where kings and
nobles practised falconry of old ; on the left is

Gothic arch of the citadel ; and on the right
rises the great mass of the hideous and uncomfort-
able infantry barracks, erected partly on the
Archery butts, in 1796, and likened by Sir Walter
Scott to a vulgar cotton-milL This edifice is 150
feet long, and four storeys high to the westward,
where it rises on a massive arcade, and from its
windows can be had a magnificent prospect, extend-
ing almost to the smoke of Glasgow, and the blue
cone of Ben Lomond, fifty miles distant

On the south-west is Drury’s gun-battery, so
named from the officer of Scottish Engineers who
built it in 1689, and in its rear is the square prison-
house, built in 1840. Passing through the citadel
gate, we find on the left the modem water-tank,
the remains of the old shot-yard, the door of which
has now disappeared ; but on the gablet above it
was a thistle, with the initials d.g.m.s. Here is
the king’s bastion, on the north-west verge of the
citadel, and on the highest cliff of the Castle rock.
Here, too, are St. Margaret’s Chapel, which we
have already described, Mons Meg, frowning, as
of old, from the now-ruinous mortar battery, and
a. piece of bare rock, the site of a plain modern
chapel, the pointed window of which was once
conspicuous from Princes Street, but which was
demolished by Colonel Moodie, R.E., in expecta-
tion that one more commodious would be erected.
But many years have since passed, and this has
never been done, consequently there is now no
chapel for the use of the troops of any religious
denomination ; while the office of chaplain has
also been abolished, at
a time when Edinburgh
has been made a depdt
centre for Scottish regi-
ments, and in defiance
of the fact that the
Castle is under the
Presbytery, and is a
parish of the city.

The platform of the
half-moon battery is
510 feet above the level
of the Forth. It is
armed with old 18 and
94 pounders, one of
which is, at one p.m.,
fired by electricity as a

time-gun, by a wire from the Calton Hill it fe
furnished with a lofty flagstaff; an iron grate for
beacon fires, and contains a draw-well no feet
deep. From its massive portholes Charles II. saw
the rout of Cromwell’s troops at Lochend in 1650 •
and from there the Corsican chief Paoli in 177^
the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1819, George IV. in
1822, Queen Victoria, and many others of note,
have viewed the city that stretched at their feet
below.

‘Within this battery is the ancient square or
Grand Parade, where some of the most interesting
buildings in the Castle are to be found, as it is
on the loftiest, most precipitous, and inaccessible
portion of the isolated rock. Here, abutting on
the veiy verge of the giddy cliff, overhanging the
Grassmarket, several hundred feet below, stands
all that many sieges have left of the ancient royal
palace, forming the southern and eastern sides of
the quadrangle. The chief feature of the former is
a large battlemented edifice, now nearly destroyed
by its conversion into a military hospital. This
was the ancient hall of the Castle, in length 80
feet by 33 in width, and 27 in height, and
lighted by tall mullioned windows from the south,
wherein Parliaments have sat, kings have feasted
and revelled, ambassadors been received, and
treaties signed for peace or war. Some remains
of its ancient grandeur are yet discernible amid
the new floors and partitions that have been run
through it. At the summit of the principal stair-
case is a beautifully-sculptured stone corbel repre-
senting a well-cut female face, ornamented on each
side by a volute and thistle. On this rests one of
the original beams of the open oak roof, and on each
side are smaller beams with many sculptured shields,
all defaced by the whitewash of the barrack
pioneers and hospital orderlies. “The view from
the many windows on
this side is scarcely sur-
passed by any other in
the capital Immedia-
tely below are the pic-
turesque old houses of
the Grassmarket and
West Port, crowned by
the magnificent towers
of Heriofs Hospital
From this deep abyss
the hum of the neigh-
bouring city rises up,
mellowed by the dis-
tance, into one pleasing
voice of life and indus-
try ; while for beyond' a

CHEST IN WHICH TE^ REGALIA WERE FOUND.

gdmboigfa CMtle.]

THE ROYAL LODGING.

77

gorgeous landscape is spread out, reaching almost have died. It is a handsome edifice, re pris ed so
to the ancient landmarks of the kingdom, guarded lately as 1616, as a date remains to show; but its
on the far east by the old keep of Craigmillar, and octagonal tower, square turrets and battlements,
on the west by Merchiston Tower.” Besides the were probably designed by Sir James Hamilton
hall m this edifice there was another in the fortress ; of Fmnart, the architect to James V. A semi-
for among the items of the High Treasurer’s ac- octagonal tower of considerable height gives access
counts, m 1516, we find for flooring the Lord’s to the strongly vaulted and once totally dark room

EDINBURGH, FROM THE KING'S BASTION, 1825 (Ajtor Ewbmnk.)

Hall in David’s Tower, ioj., and other payments
for woodwork in the “ Gret Ha’ windois in the
Castell, gret gestis and dowbill dalis for the myd
chalmer, the king’s kechm, and the New Court
kechin in David’s Toure,” and for the Register
House built in 1542 by “John Merlyoune,” who
first paved the High Street by order of James V.

On the east side of the square is the old palace,
or royal lodging, in which many stirring events
have happened, many a lawless deed been done,
where the longest line of sovereigns in the Bri-
Ides dwelt, and manv have been bom and

in which the regalia — or all of it that the greedy
James VI. was unable to take with him to England
— lay so long hidden from view, and where they are
now exhibited daily to visitors, who number several
thousands every week. The room was greatly
improved in 1848, when the ceiling was repaired
with massive oak panelling, having shields in bold
relief, and a window was opened to the square.
Two barriers close this room, one a grated door of
vast strength like a small portcullis.

In this building Mary of Guise died in 1560,
and a doorway, bearing the date of 1566, gives

[EdabughCutk.

ft OLD AND NEW

■ ;

W fa g fot rn tie apartment in which her daughter
tNi I t Brawl of James VI. It was formerly part
if ifexge room which, before being partitioned,
m m m A 30 by 25 feet On the 1 ith of February,
$gfy» after the murder of Damley, Mary retired
ttfe this apartment, where she had the walls hung
iriRi black, and remained in strict seclusion until
after the funeral. Killigrew, who came from
Elizabeth with letters of condolence, on his in-
troduction found “ the Queen’s Majesty in a
dark chamber, so that he could not see her
face, but by her words she seemed very doleful.”
In 1849, an antique iron chisel, spear-shaped,
was found in the fireplace of this apartment,
which was long used as a canteen for the soldiers,
but * has now been renovated, though in a rude
and inelegant form.

Below the grand hall are a double tier of
strongly-vaulted dungeons, entered by a passage
from the west, and secured by an intricate arrange-
ment of iron gates and massive chains. In one
of these Kirkaldy of Grange buried his brother
David Melville. The small loophole that admits
light into each of these huge vaults, whose
origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, is strongly
secured by three ranges of iron bars. Within these
drear abodes have captives of all kinds pined, and
latterly the French prisoners, forty of whom slept
ih each. In some are still the wooden frames to
which their hammock's were slung. Under Queen
Mary’s room there is one dungeon excavated out
of the solid rock, and having, as we have said, an
iron staple in its wall to which the prisoner was
chained.

The north side of the quadrangle consists now
of an uninteresting block of barracks, erected about
the middle of the eighteenth century, and altered,
but scarcely improved, in 1860-2, by the Royal En-
gineers and Mr. CharlesW. Billings. It occupies the
site, and was built from the materials, of what was
once a church of vast dimensions and unknown an-
tiquity, but the great western gable of which was long
ago a conspicuous feature above the eastern curtain
wall. By Maitland it is described as “ a very long
and large ancient church, which from its spacious
dimensions I imagine -that it was not only built for
the use of the garrison, but for the service of the
neighbouring inhabitants before St Giles’s church
was erected for their accommodation.’’ Its great
font, and many beautifully carved stones were found
built into die barrack wall during recent alterations.
It is supposed to have been a church erected after
the death of the pious Queen Margaret, and dedi-
cated to her, as it is mentioned by David I. in his
Holyrood charter as M the church of the Castle

EDINBURGH.

of Edinburgh,” and is again confirmed as such in the
charter of Alexander III. and several Papal bulls,
and the “ paroche kirk within the said Castell,” is
distinctly referred to by the Presbytery of Edin-
burgh in 1595-* In 1753 it was divided into three
storeys, and filled with tents, cannon, and other mu-
nitions of war.

A winding stair descends from the new bar-
racks to the butts, where the rock is defended
by the western wall and Bute’s Battery, near which,
at an angle, a turret, named the Queen’s Post,
occupies the site of St Margaret's Tower. Fifty
feet below the level of the rock is another guard-
house and one of the draw-wells poisoned by the
English in 1 5 7 2. Near it is the ancient postern gate,
where Dundee held his parley with the Duke of
Gordon in 1688, and through which, perhaps, St.
Margaret’s body was borne in 1093.

From thence there is a sudden ascent by steps,
behind the banquette of the bastions and near
the principal magazine, to Mylne’s Mount, where
there is another grate for a bale-fire to alarm Fife,
Stirling, and the north. The fortifications are
irregular, furnished throughout with strong stone
turrets, and prepared for mounting about sixty
pieces of cannon. Two door-lintels covered with
curious sculptures are still preserved : one over the
entrance to the ordnance office represents Mons
Meg and other ancient cannon ; the other a can-
noneer of the sixteenth century, in complete armour,
in the act of loading a small culverin.

The Castle farm is said to have been the ancient
village of Broughton, which St. David granted to
the monks of Holyrood ; the Castle gardens we
have already referred to, and to the bams, stables,
and lists attached to it, we shall have occasion to
refer elsewhere.

The Castle company was a corps of Scottish
soldiers raised in January 1661, and formed a
permanent part of the garrison till 1818, when,
with the ancient band of Mary of Guise, which
garrisoned the Castle of Stirling, they were in-
corporated in one of the thirteen veteran battalions
embodied in that year. The Castle being within
the abrogated parish of Holyrood, has a burial-place
for its garrison in the Canongate churchyard ; but
dead have been buried within the walls frequently
during sieges and blockades, as in 1745, w hen nine-
teen soldiers and three women were interred on the
summit of the rock.

The Castle is capable of containing 3,000 in-
fantry ; but the accommodation for troops is greatly
neglected by Government, and the barracks have

• Wodrow’s “ llhotDuqr.”

fjpCutle H3L]

THE BLEW STONE.

^een characterised as “hovels that are a disgrace
to Europe.”

In lists concerning the Castle of Edinburgh,
the first governor appears to have been Thomas de
Cancia in 1147 ; the first constable, David Kincaid
of Coates House, in 1542 5 and the first State pri-
soner warded therein Thomas of Colville in 1210,
for conspiring against William the lion.

We may fittingly take leave of the grand old

Castle in the fine lines of Burns’s “ Address to
Edinburgh ” : —

“ There, watching high the least alarms.

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar;

Like some bold vet’ran, grey in arms.

And marked with many a seamy scar ;

The pond’rous wall and massy bar,

Grim rising o’er the nigged rock,

Have oft withstood nmniliwg war,

1 And oft repelled th’ invader's shock.”

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CASTLE HILL.

The Esplanade or Castle Hill— Castle Banks— The Celtic Crosses— The Secret Passage and Well-house Tower— The Church on the Castle HQI —
The Reservoir— The House of Allan Ramsay— Executions for Treason, Sorcery, &c. — The Master of Forbes— Lady Jane Douglas— Castle
Hill Promenade— Question as to the Proprietary of the Esplanade and Castle Hill.

“ The Castle Hill,” says Dr. Chambers, “ is partly “ Archaeologia Scotica,” which contains an “ Elegie
an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the on the great and famous Blew Stone which lay on
garrison, and partly a street, the upper portion of the Castle Hill, and was interred there.” On this
that vertebral line which, under the names of Lawn- relic, probably a boulder, a string of verses form
market, High Street, and Canongate, extends to the doggerel elegy

mmmm

“ The Castle Hill,” says Dr. Chambers, “ is partly
an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the
garrison, and partly a street, the upper portion of
that vertebral line which, under the names of Lawn-
market, High Street, and Canongate, extends to
Holyrood Palace f but
it is with the Esplanade
and banks we have
chiefly to deal at
present.

Those who now see
the Esplanade, a peace-
ful open space, 5 10 feet
in length by 300 in
breadth, with the squads
of Highland soldiers at
drill, or the green bank
that slopes away to the
north, covered with
beautiful timber, swarm-
ing in summer with lit-
tle ones in care of their
nurses, can scarcely
realise that thereon
stood the ancient Spur,

before which so many runic cross, castle bank.

men have perished

sword in hand, and that it was the arena of so
niany revolting executions by the axe and stake,
for treason, heresy, and sorcery.

It lay in a rough state till 1753, when the earth
taken from the foundations of the Royal Exchange
was spread over it, and the broad flight of forty
steps which gave access to the drawbridge was
buried. The present ravelin before the half-moon
was built in 1723 ; but alterations in the level must
have taken place prior to that, to judge from

** Our old Blew Slone, that ’s
dead and gone.

His marrow may not be;

Large, twenty feet in length
he was,

His bulk none e'er did
ken ;

Dour and dief, and run with
grief,

When he preserved men.

Behind his back a batterie
was,

Contrived with packs of
woo,

Let's now think on, since
he is gone.

We're in the Castle's

The woolpacks evi-
dently refer to the siege
of 1689.

The Esplanade was
improved in 1816 by a

CASTLE BANK* P"»P* tailing OB

the north, and a few
years after by a tow wall on -the south, strengthened
by alternate towers and turrets. A bronze statue of
the Duke of York and Albany, K.G., holding his
marshal’s bfiton, was erected on the north side in
1839, and a little lower down are two Celtic memorial
crosses of remarkable beauty. The huger and
more ornate of them was erected in 1862, by the
officers and soldiers of the 78th Row-shire High-
landers, to die memory of their c omra des who Ml
during the revolt in India ’in 1857-8 ; and the

tu raised, “ In memory of Colonel
ImmA Dfttaglas Mackenzie, C.B., who served for
$Wfiw yean in the 92nd Highlanders — who saw
v SMBrvIce in the field, and deserved well of

jh rifoffifty in war and in peace. . . . Died on
Wty et Dartmoor, 24th August, 1873”

tiki the green bank behind the duke's statue is a

very curious monumental stone, which, however,
can scarcely be deemed a local antiquity — though
of vast age. . It was brought from the coast of
Sweden by Sir Alexander Seton, of Preston, many
years ago. On it is engraved a serpent encircling a
mss, and on the body of the former is an inscrip-
tion in nines, signifying—

Aw SNOKAVID THIS STOKE IK MEMORY

or Hialm, his Father.

God help his soul!

rn»Ci «tfetnn

Two relics of great antiquity remain on this side
of the Castle bank— a fragment of the secret
passage and the ruins of the Well-house tower
which, in 1450, and for long after, guarded the
pathway that led under the rock to the church of
St Cuthbert Within the upper and lower portion
of this tower, a stair, hewn in the living rock, was

found a few years ago, buried under a may of
rubbish, among which was a human skull, shattered
by concussion on a step. Many human bones lay
near it with various coins, chiefly of Edward I. and
Edward III. ; others were Scottish and foreign
Many fragments of exploded bombs were found
among the upper layer of rubbish, and in a
breach of the tower was found imbedded a
48-pound shot At certain seasons, woodcock,
snipe, and water-ducks are seen hovering near

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. »

GROUND PLAN OF EDINBURGH CASTLE IN THE PRESENT DAY.

ta

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH*

CTht Cattle RJU

Aft rains, attracted by the dampness of the soil, j remains referred to in our first chapter. This was-
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet the site of the ancient water-house. It was not
eastward of the tower there was found in the bank, until 1621 that the citizens discovered the necessity
In 1820, a large coffin of thick fir containing three for a regular supply of water beyond that which
skeletons, a male and two females, supposed to be the public wells with their water-carriers afforded,
those of a man named Sinclair and his two sisters, It cannot be supposed that the stagnant fluid of the
who were all drowned in the loch in 1628 for a north and south lochs could be fit for general use,
horrible crime. yet, in 1583 and 1598, it was proposed to. supply

Eastward of this tower of the 15th century are the the city from the latter. Eleven years after the
remains of a long, low archway, walled with rubble, date above mentioned, Peter Brusche, a German
but arched with well-hewn stones, popularly known engineer, contracted to supply the city with water
as “the lion's den,” and which has evidently formed from the lands of Comiston, in a leaden pipe of three
a portion of that secret escape or covered way inches’ bore, for a gratuity of £$o. By the year
from the Castle (which no Scottish fortress was ever 1704 the increase of population rendered an addi-
without), the tradition concerning which is of general tional supply from Liberton and the Pentland Hills
and very ancient belief ; and this idea has been still necessary. As years passed on the old water-house
further strengthened by the remains of a similar proved quite inadequate to the wants of the city,
subterranean passage being found below Brown’s It was removed in 1849, and in its place now stands*
Close, on the Castle Hill. At the highest part of the great reservoir, by which old and new Edin-
the latter stood the ancient barrier gate of 1450, burgh are alike supplied with water unexampled in-
separating the fortress from the city. This gate purity, and drawn chiefly from an artificial lake
was temporarily replaced on the occasion of the in the Pentlands, nearly seven miles distant On
visit of George IV. in 1822, and by an iron the outside it is only one storey in height, with a
chevaux de frise — to isolate the 82nd Regiment and tower of 40 feet high ; but within it has an area 1 io-
garrison generally — during the prevalence of Asiatic feet long, 90 broad, and 30 deep, containing two
cholera, ten years subsequently. millions of gallons of water, which can be distributed

There stood on the north side of the Castle through the entire city at the rate of 5,000 gallons
Hill an ancient church, some vestiges of which were per minute.

visible in Maitland’s time, in 1753, and which he Apart from the city, embosomed among trees —
supposed to have been dedicated to St. Andrew the and though lower down than this reservoir, yet
patron of Scotland, and which he had seen referred perched high in air — upon the northern bank of the
to in a deed of gift t>f twenty merks yearly, Scottish Esplanade, stands the little octagonal villa of Allan
money, to the Trinity altar therein, by Alexander Ramsay, from the windows of which the poet could
Curor, vicar of Livingstone, 20th December, 1488. enjoy an extensive view of all the fields, farms, and
In June, 1754, when some workmen were levelling tiny hamlets that lay beyond the loch below, with
this portion of the Castle Hill, they discovered a the vast panorama beyond — the Firth of Forth,
subterranean chamber, fourteen feet square, with the hills of Fife and Stirling. “ The sober
wherein lay a crowned image of the Virgin, hewn and industrious life of this exception to the race
of very white stone, two brass altar candlesticks, of poets having resulted in a small competency,
some trinkets, and a few ancient Scottish and French he built this oddly-shaped house in his latter days,
coins. By several remains of burnt matter and two designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet he had
large cannon balls being also found there, this so often eulogised in his verse. The story goes,”
edifice was supposed to have been demolished says Chambers in his 11 Traditions,” “ that, showing
during some of the sieges undergone by the Castle it soon after to the clever Patrick Lord Elibank,
since the invention of artillery. And in December, with much fussy interest in its externals and accom-
1849, when the Castle Hill was being excavated modation, he remarked that the wags were already
for the new reservoir, several finely-carved stones at work on the subject— they likened it to a goose-
were found in what was understood to be the pie (owing to the roundness of the shape). ‘Indeed,
foundation of this chapel or of Christ's Church, Allan/ said his lordship, ‘now I see you in it I think
which was commenced there in 1637, and had the wags are not far wrong. 1 ”
actually proceeded so far that Gordon of Rothie- Ramsay, the author of the most perfect pastoral
may shows it in his map with a high-pointed spire, poem in the whole scope of British literature, and
but it was abandoned, and its materials used in a song writer of great merit, was secretly a
the erection of the present church at the Tron. Jacobite, though a regular attendant m St Giles’s
Under all this were found those pre-historic human Church. Opposed to the morose manners of hi*

t

Hill.]

THE MASTER OF FORBES.

time he delighted in music and the theatre, and
it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led
him, in 1725, to open a circulating library for the
-diffusion of fiction among the citizens of the time.
Three years subsequently, in the narrow-minded
spirit of “the dark age ” of Edinburgh, the magis-
trates were moved to action, by the fear this new
kind of reading might have on the minds of youth,
and actually tried, but without effect, to put his
library down. Among the leaders of these self-
constituted guardians of morality was Erskine Lord
Grange, whose life was a scandal to the age. In 1 7 36
Allan Ramsay’s passion for the drama prompted him
to erect a theatre in Carrubber’s Close ; but in the
ensuing year the act for licensing the stage was
passed, and the magistrates ordered the house to
be shut up. By this speculation he lost a good deal
of money, but it is remarked by his biographers
that this was perhaps the only unfortunate project
in which he ever engaged. His constant cheerful-
ness and great conversational powers made him
a favourite with all classes ; and being fond of
children he encouraged his three daughters to
bring troops of young girls about his house, and
in their sports he mingled with a vivacity singular
in one of his years, and for them he was wont to
make dolls and cradles with his own hands. In
that house on the Castle bank he spent the last
twelve years of a blameless life. He did not give
up his shop — long the resort of all the wits of
Edinburgh, the Hamiltons of Bangour, and Gilbert-
field, Gay, and others — till 1755. He died in
1758, in his seventy-second year, and was buried
in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where a tomb marks
his grave. “ An elderly female told a friend of
mine,” says Chambers, “ that she remembered, as
a girl, living as an apprentice with a milliner in
the Grassmarket, being sent to Ramsay Garden,
to assist in making dead-clothes for the poet. She
could recall, however, no particulars of the same,
but the roses blooming in the death-chamber.”

The house of the poet passed to his son, Allan, ]
an eminent portrait painter, a man of high culture,
■and a favourite in those circles wherein Johnson
and Boswell moved. He inherited considerable
literary taste from his father, and was the founder
of the “ Select Society” of Edinburgh, in 1754* of
which all the learned men there were members.
By the interest of Lord Bute he was introduced
to George III., when Prince of Wales, whose
portrait he painted. He enlarged the house his
father built, and also raised the additional large
edifices to the eastward, now known as Ramsay
Gardens. The biographers of the painter always
-assert that he made a romantic marriage. In his

* 3 _

youth, when teaching drawing to the daughters of
Sir Alexander Lindesay, of Evelick, one of them fell
in love with him, and as the consent of the parents
was impossible then, they were secretly united in
wedlock. He died at Dover in 1 784, after which
the property went to his son, General John Ramsay
(latterly of the Chasseurs Britanniques), who, at his
death in 1845, left the property to Murray of Hen-
derland, and so ended the line of the author of
“ The Gentle Shepherd.”

Having thus described the locality of the Espla-
nade, we shall now relate a few of the tetrible
episodes — apart from war and tumult — of which it
has been the scene.

In the reign of James V. the Master of Forbes
was executed here for treason. He and his father
had been warded in the Castle on that charge in
1536. By George Earl of Huntly, who bore a
bitter animosity to the house of Forbes, the former
had been accused of a design to take the life of
the king, by shooting him with a hand-gun in
Aberdeen, and also of being the chief instigator
of the mutiny among the Scottish forces at Jed-
burgh, when on the march for England. Pro-
testing his innocence, the Master boldly offered to
maintain it in single combat against the earl, who
gave a bond for 30,000 merks to make good his
charge before the 31st of July, 1537- But it was
not until the nth of the same month in the fol-
lowing year that the Master was brought to trial,
before Argyle, the Lord Justice General, and
Huntly failed not to make good his vaunt.
Though the charges were barely proved, and the
witnesses were far from exceptionable, the luckless
Master of Forbes was sentenced by the Com-
missioners of Justiciary and fifteen other men of
high rank to be hanged, drawn, beheaded, and dis-
membered as a traitor, on the Castle Hill, which
was accordingly done, and his quarters were placed
above the city gates. The judges are supposed to
have been bribed by Huntly, and many of the jury,
though of noble birth, were his hereditary enemies.
His father, after a long confinement, and under-
going a tedious investigation, was released from
the Castle.

But a more terrible execution was soon to follow
—that of Lady Jane Douglas, the young and beau
tiful widow of John Lord Glammis, wjio, with her
second husband, Archibald Campbell of Skipness,
her son the little Lord Glammis, and John Lyon
an aged priest, were all committed prisoners to the-
Castle, on an absurd charge of seeking to compass
the death of the king by poison and sorcery.
11 Jane Douglas,** says a writer in “Miscellanea
[ Scotica,” was the most renowned beauty in Britain

84

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH*

iTheCMtloHia.

At that time. She was of ordinary stature, but her tuted Court of Justiciary, extremity of agony com*
mien was 'majestic; her eyes full, her face oval, pelled them to assent to whatever was asked, and
her complexion delicate and extremely fair ; heaven they were thus condemned by their own lips,
designed that her mind should want none of those Lady Jane was sentenced to perish at the stake on
p e rfe cti ons a mortal creature can be capable of; the Castle Hill. Her son, her husband, and the
her modesty was admirable, her courage above what old friar were all replaced in David's Tower, where
cotdd be expected from her sex, her judgment the first remained a prisoner till 1542.

solid, and her carriage winning and affable to her Mercy was implored in vain, and on the 17th of
inferiors." One of the most ardent of her suitors, July— three days after the execution of the Master
on the death of Glammis, was a man named of Forbes — the beautiful and unfortunate Lady
Wiliam Lyon, who, on her preferring Campbell of Jane was led from the Castle gates and chained to
Skipness, vowed by a terrible oath to dedicate his a stake. “ Barrels tarred, and faggots oiled, were
life to revenge. He thus accused Lady Jane and piled around her, and she was burned to ashes
the three others named, and though their friends within view of her son and husband, who beheld
were inclined to scoff at the idea of treason, the the terrible scene from the tower that overlooked
artful addition of “ sorcery * was suited to the it"

On the following night Campbell, frenzied by
grief and despair, attempted to escape, but fell over
the rocks, and was found next morning dashed out

growing superstition of the age, and steeled against
them the hearts of many.

Examined on the rack, before the newly-consti-

PROSPECT OF EDINBURGH CASTLE FROM THE EAST IN *770. {4f**r mm Engrmving m Hmfm Armmft "Hisfrj

86

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.'

[The Cutle Hill

of all human shape at the foot of the cliff. James V.
was struck with remorse on hearing all this terrible
story. He. released the friar; but, singular to say,
William Lyon was merely banished the kingdom ;
while a ««« named Mackie, by whom the alleged
poison was said to be prepared, was shorn of his
•cars.*

On the last day of February, 1539, Thomas
Forret, Vicar of Dollar, John Keillor and John
Beveridge, two black friars, Duncan Simpson a
priest, and a gentleman named Robert Forrester,
'were all burned together on the Casde Hill .on a |
-charge of heresy ; and it is melancholy to know that
.a king so good and so humane as James V. was a
spectator of this inhuman persecution for religion,
and that he came all the way from Linlithgow
Palace to witness it, whither he returned on the
2nd ot March. It is probable that he viewed it
.from the Castle walls.

Again and again has the same place been the
scene of those revolting executions for sorcery
which disgraced the legal annals of Scotland.
There, in 1570, Bessie Dunlop “was worried” at
the stake for simply practising as a “wise woman n
in curing diseases and recovering stolen goods.
Several others perished in 1 590-1 ; among others,
Euphemie M‘Calzean, for consorting with the devil,
abjuring her baptism, making waxen pictures to be
•enchanted, raising a storm to drown Anne of
Denmark on her way to Scotland, and so forth, t
In 1600 Isabel Young was “woryt at a stake”
for laying sickness on various persons, “and
thereafter burnt to ashes on the Castle Hill.” t
Eight years after, James Reid, a noted sorcerer,
perished in the same place, charged with prac-
tising healing by th*e black art, “whilk craft,”
•says one authority, “ he learned frae the devil, his I
master, in Binnie Craigs and Corstorphine, where
he met with him and consulted with him divers |
tymes, whiles in the likeness of a man, whiles in
the likeness of a horse.” Moreover, he had tried
to destroy the crops of David Liberton by putting
•a piece of enchanted flesh under his mill door,
and to destroy David bodily by making a picture
of him in wax and melting it before a fire, an
ancient superstition — common to the Western
Isles and in some parts of Rajpootana to this
•day. So great was the honor these crimes excited,
that he was taken direct from the court to the
:.take. During the ten years of the Commonwealth
•executions on this spot occurred with appalling
frequency.} On the 15th October, 1656, seven

Tetter, "Criminal Triak," &c. Ac. t “ Diunud of Oecumoto.”
S Spottwood, " Mbcrtany." | Pitcairn.

culprits were executed at once, two of whom were
burned ; and on the 9th March, 1659, “ there were,”
says Nicoll, “fyve wemen, witches, brint on the
Castell Hill, all of them confessand their covenant-
ing with Satan, sum of thame renunceand thair
baptisme, and all of them oft tymes dancing with
the devell.”

During the reign of Charles I., when the Earl of
Stirling obtained permission to colonise Nova
I Scotia, and to sell baronetcies to some 200 sup-
posed colonists, with power of pit and gallows over
their lands, the difficulty of enfeoffing them in
possessions so distant was overcome by a royal
mandate, converting the soil of the Castle Hill for
the time being into that of Nova Scotia; and
between 1625 and 1649 sixty-four of these baronets
took seisin before the archway of the Spur.

When the latter was fairly removed the hill
became the favourite promenade of the citizens ;
and in June, 1709, we find it acknowledged by the
town council, that the Lord’s Day “ is profaned by
people standing in the streets, and vaguing (sic) t£
fields, gardens, and the Castle Hill.” Denounce
all these as they might, human nature never could
be altogether kept off the Castle Hill ; and in old
times even the most respectable people promenaded
there in multitudes between morning and evening
service. In the old song entitled “The Young
Laird and Edinburgh Katie,” to which Allan
Ramsay added some verses, the former addresses
his mistress : —

“ Wat ye wha I met yestreen.

Coming doon the street, my jo ?

My mistress in her tartan screen,

Fu bonny, braw, and sweet, my jo !

‘ My dear,’ quo I, * thanks to the night,

That never wished a lover ill,

Since ye’re out o’ your mother’s sight,

Let’s tak’ a walk up to the Hill.' ”

In 1858 there ensued a dispute between the
magistrates of Edinburgh and the Crown as to the
proprietary of the Castle Hill and Esplanade. The
former asserted their right to the whole ground
claimed by the board of ordnance, acknowledging
no other boundary to the possessions of the former
than the ramparts of the Castle. This extensive
claim they made in virtue of the rights conferred
upon them by the golden charter of James VI.
in 1603, wherein they were gifted with “all and
whole, the loch called the North Loch, lands,
pools, and marisches thereof, the north and south
banks and braes situated on the west of the buigh,
near the Castle of Edinburgh, on both sides of the
Castle from the public highway, and that part of

THE RAGGED SCHOOL

The Ctftle Hffl.1

. said burgh situated under the Castle Hill to-
wards the north, to the head of the bank, and so
e oing down to the said North Loch,” &c.
b This right of proprietary seems clear enough,
yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown,

*7

and found that “ all the ground adjacent to the
Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and
the north and south banks or braes/’ belonged,
“jure corona , to Her Majesty as part and pertinent
of the said Castle.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE CASTLE HILL [concluded). ,

_ ritlwlA 0ririnal Ragged School-Old Houses in the Street of the Castle Hill-Duke of Gordon*. House BWr*. Oo«e-WeW.
cio^Dr A?« WebsS-Boswrfl’s Court-Hyndford House-Assembly Hall-Houses of the Marqui. ofArjyle, Sir Andrew Kennedy.
Otssilli^ the Laird of Cockpen-Lord Semple's Hou«-Lord Semple-PaUce of Mary of GuUe-lu Fate.

On the north side of this thoroughfare— which,
within 150 years ago, was one of the most
aristocratic quarters of the old city — two great
breaches have been made: one when the Free
Church College was built in 1846, and the other, a
little later, when Short’s Observatory was built in
Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged
School, which owes its existence to the philan-
thropic efforts of the late Dr. Cxuthrie, who, with
Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took
so leading a part in the non-intrusion controversy,
which *nded in the disruption in 1843 and the
institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1 847
Guthrie’s fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf
of the homeless and destitute children, the little
street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the
establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged
Industrial School, which has been productive of
incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer
classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of
a good common and Christian education, by train-
ing them in habits of industry, enabling them to
earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for
the duties of life.

All children are excluded who attend regular
day-schools, whose parents have a regular income,
or who receive support or education from the paro-
chial board; and the Association consists of all sub-
scribers of 10 s. and upwards per annum, or donors
of £§ and upwards; and the general plan upon
which this ragged school and its branch establish-
ment at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows,
viz.-.— “To give children an adequate allowance of
food for their daily support ; to instruct them in
reading, writing, and arithmetic ; to train them in
habits of industry, by instructing and employing
them in such sorts of work as are suited to their
years ; to teach them the truths of the Gospel,
making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of
instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive
food as on other days, and such religious instruction

as shall be arranged by the acting committee,”
which consists of not less than twelve members.

To this most excellent institution no children
are admissible who are above fourteen or under five
years of age, and they must either be natives of
Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months
prior to application for admission, though, in special
cases, it may be limited to six. None are admitted
or retained who labour under infectious disease, or
whose mental or bodily constitution renders them
incapable of profiting by the institution. All must
attend church on Sunday, and no formula of
doctrine is taught to which their parents may
object ; and children are excused from attendance
at school or worship on Sunday whose parents
object to their attendance, but who undertake that
the children are otherwise religiously instructed in
the tenets of the communion to which they belong,
provided they are in a condition to be entrusted
with the care of their children.

Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views
of Dr. Guthrie, and most ably have they been
carried out.

According to the Report for 1879— which may
be token as fairly typical of the work done in this
eminently useful institution— there was an average
attendance in the Ramsay Lane Schools of *16
boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department
comprises carpentry, box-making, shoemaking, and
tailoring, and the net profits made by the boys
in these branches amounted to £iSt 14 *■ Sl“-
Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the
cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they
occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys
was estimated at £130, and the girls, equaUy
industrious, did work to the value (including the

washing) of j£i °9 V- '

Full of years and honour, Dr. Thomas Guthrie

died 14th February, 1873.

Memories of these old houses that have passed
away, yet remain, while on die opposite side of the

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH*

‘ [The Castle HOI.

street some are unchanged in external aspect since arch, within which, is a large coronet, supported by
tile days of the Stuarts. two deerhounds, well known features in the Gordon

On the pediment of a dormer window of the arms. Local tradition universally affirms this
house that now forms the south-west angle of the mansion to have been the residence of the dukes
street, directly facing the Castle, and overlooking of that title, which was bestowed on the house

THE CASTLE HILL, 1845.

the steep flight of steps that descend to Johnston of Huntly in 1 684 3 but the edifice in question
Terrace, we find a date 1630, with the initials evidently belongs to an anterior age; and the old

A. M. — M. N., and in the wall below there still tradition was proved to be correct, when in a dis-

remains a cannon ball, fired from the half-moon position (now in possession of the City Improve
during the blockade in 1745. Through this build- ment Commission) by Sir Robert Baird to his
ing there is a narrow alley named Blair's Close— so son William, dated 1694, he describes it as “all

narrow indeed, that amid the brightest sunshine and hail, that my lodging in the Castle Hill of

there is never in it more than twilight— giving ac- Edinburgh, formerly possessed by the Duchess of
cess to an open court, at the first angle of which is a Gordon.”

handsome Gothic doorway, surmounted by an ogee The latter was Lady Elizabeth Howard, daugh-

The Cud* HIDJ

THE DUKE OF GORDON’S HOUSE.

*9

ter 0 f the Duke of Norfolk and wife of Duke
George, who so gallantly defended the Castle
against the troops of William of Orange; during
the lifetime of the duke she retired to a Belgian
convent, but afterwards returned to the old mansion
in Edinburgh, where she frequently resided till
her death, which took place at the abbey in 1732,

life, destroyed utterly the ancient Gothic fireplace^
which was very beautiful in its design.

This house is mentioned in the “Diurnal of
Occurrents 1 ’ as being, in 1570, the residence of
Patrick Edgar ; and after it passed from the Gor-
dons it was possessed by the family of Newbyth,
who resided in it for several generations, and

ALLAN RAMSAY’S HOUSE.

sixteen years after that of the duke at Leith.
The internal fittings of the mansion are in many
respects unchanged since its occupation by the
duchess. It is wood-panelled throughout, and
one large room which overlooks the Esplanade is
decorated with elaborate carvings, and with a large
painting over the mantelpiece the production of
Nome, a famous house-decorator of the eighteenth
century, whose genius for landscapes entitles him j
to a place among Scottish painters. An explosion i
of gunpowder which took place in the basement
of the house in 1811, attended with serious loss of
• in

therein, on the 6th December, 1757, was bom
the gallant Sir David Baird, Bart, the hero* of
Seringapatam and conqueror of Tippoo Saib ; and
therein he was educated and brought up. Re-
turning years after, he visited the place of his birth,
which had long since passed into /other h a nds .
Chambers relates that the individual then occupy-
ing the house received the veteran hero with great
respect, and, after showing him through it, ushered
him into the little garden behind, where some boys
were engaged in mischievously throwing cab b age
atalks at the chimneys of the Gmssmaiket On

Old and new Edinburgh.

rn* Cted* HiU.

90

one going plump down a vent they set up a shout
of joy. Sir David laughed, and entreated the
father of the lads “ not to be too angry ; he and
Ins brother, * he added with some emotion, “when

CANNON LALL IN W\LL OF HOUSE IN CASTLE HILL.

living here at the same age, had indulged in pre-
cisely the same amusement, the chimneys then, as
now, being so provokingly open to attacks, that
there was no resisting the temptation.” From
the Bairds of Newbyth the house passed to the
Browns of Greenbank, and from them, Brown's
Close, where the modern entrance to it is situated,
derives its name.

On the same side of the street Webster’s Close
served to indicate the site of the house of Dr.
Alexander Webster, appointed in 1737 to the
Tolbooth church. In his day one of the most
popular men in the city, he was, celebrated for his
wit and social qualities, and amusing stories are
still told of his fondness for claret With the as-
sistance of Dr. Wallace he matured his favourite
scheme of a perpetual fund for the relief of
widows and children of the clergy of the Scottish
Church ; and when, in 1745, Edinburgh was in
possession of the Jacobite clans, he displayed a
striking proof of his fearless character by employ-
ing all his eloquence and influence to retain the
people in their loyalty to the house of Hanover.
He had some pretension to the character of a poet,
and an amatory piece of his has been said to rival
the effusions of Catullus. It was written in allu-
sion to his marriage with Mary Erskine. There is
one wonderfully impassioned verse, in which, after
describing a process of the imagination, by which
be comes to think bis innamorataa creature of more

than mortal purity, he says that at length he clasp*
her to his bosom and discovers that she is but a
woman after all !

“ When I see thee, I love thee, but hearing adore,

I wonder and think you a woman no more,

Till mad with admiring, I cannot contain,

And, kissing those lips, find you woman again !"

He died in January, 1784.

Eastward of this point stands a very handsome
old tenement of great size and breadth, presenting
a front of polished ashlar to the street, surmounted
by dormer windows. Over the main entrance to
Boswell’s Court (so named from a doctor who re-
sided there about the close of the last century)
there is a shield, and one of those pious legends
so peculiar to most old houses in Scottish burghs.
O . Lord . in . the . is . al . mi . traist. And this
edifice uncorroborated tradition asserts to have
been the mansion of the Earls of Bothwell.

A tall narrow tenement immediately to the west
of the Assembly Hall forms the last ancient build-
ing on the south side of the street. It was built in
1740, by Mowbray of Castlewan, on the site of
a venerable mansion belonging to the Countess
Dowager of Hyndford (Elizabeth daughter of
John Earl of Lauderdale), and from him it passed,
about 1747, into the possession of William Earl of
Dumfries, who served in the Scots Greys and Scots
Guards, who was an aide de camp at the battle of
Dettingen, and who succeeded his mother, Penelope,
countess in her own right, and afterwards, by the
death of his brother, as Earl erf Stair. He was suc-
ceeded in it by his widow, who, within exactly a
year and day of his death, married the Hon.
Alexander Gordon (son of the Earl of Aberdeen),
who, on his appointment to the bench in 1784,
assumed the title of Lord Rockville.

He was the last man of rank who inhabited this
stately old mansion ; but the narrow alley which
gives access to the court behind bore the name
of Rockville Close. Within it, and towards the
west there towered a tall substantial edifice once
the residence of the Countess of Hyndford, and
sold by her, in 1740, to Henry Bothwell of Glen-
corse, last Lord Holyroodhouse, who died at his
mansion in the Canongate in 1755.

The comer of the street is now terminated by
the magnificent hall built in 1842-4, at the cost
of 16,000 for the accommodation of the General
Assembly, which sits here annually in May, pre-
sided over by a Commissioner, who is always a
Scottish nobleman, and resides in Holyrood Palace,
where he holds royal state, and gives levrfes in the
gallery erf the kings of Scotland, The octagon*!

The Castle Hill.]

LORD SEMPLE.

spire which surmounts the massive Gothic tower at
the main entrance rises to an altitude of 240 feet,
and forms a point in all views of the city.

Many quaint closes and picturesque old houses
were swept away to give place to this edifice, and
to the hideous western approach, which weakened
the strength and destroyed the amenity of the
Castle in that quarter. Among these, in Ross’s
Court, stood the house of the great Marquis of
Argyle, which, in the days of Creech, was rented by
a hosier 'at £12 per annum. In another, named
Kennedy’s Close — latterly a mean and squalid alley
—there resided, until almost recent times, a son of
Sir Andrew Kennedy of Clowbum, Bart., whose
title is now extinct ; and the front tenement was
alleged to have been the town residence of those
proud and fiery Earls of Cassillis, the " kings of
Carrick,” whose family name was Kennedy, and
whose swords were seldom in the scabbard.
Here, too, stood a curious old timber-fronted
“land,” said to have been a nonjurant Episcopal
chapel, in which was a beautifully sculptured Gothic
niche with a cusped canopy, and which Wilson
supposes to have been one of the private oratories
that Amot states to have been existing in his time,
and in which the baptismal fonts were then re-
maining.

On the north side of the street, most quaint was
the group of buildings partly demolished to make
way for Short’s Observatory. One was dated 1621;
another was very lofty, with two crowstepped gables
and four elaborate string mouldings on a smooth
ashlar front. The first of these, which stood at the
corner of Ramsay Lane, and had some very ornate
windows, was universally alleged to be the town
residence of that personage so famous in Scottish
song, the Laird of Cockpen, whose family name
was Ramsay (being a branch of the noble family of
Dalhousie) and from whom some affirm the lane
to have been called, long before the days of the
poet. By an advertisement in the Edinburgh Cou-
rant for January, 1761, we find that Lady Cockpen
was then resident in a house 14 in the Bell Close,”
the north side of the Castle Hill, the rental of
which was ^14 ior.

The last noble occupants of the old mansion
were two aged ladies, daughters of the Lord Gray
of Kinfauns. The house adjoining bore the date
as mentioned, 1621 ; and the one below it was a
fine specimen of the wooden-fronted tenements,
with the oak timbers of the projecting gable beauti-
fy carved. During the early part of the 18th
century this liras the town mansion of David third
of Leven, who succeeded the Duke of Gor-
don as governor of the Castle in 1689, and belied

his race by his cowardice at Killiecrankie. 41 No
doubt,” wrote an old cavalier at a later pfrfon j,
“ if Her Majesty Queen Anne had been rightly in-
formed of his care of the Castle, where there were
not ten barrels of powder when the Pretender was
on the coast of Scotland, and of his courteous be-
haviour to ladies— particularly how he horsewhipped
the Lady Mortonhall — she would have made him
a general for life.” *

Close by this edifice there stands, in Semple’s 1
Close, a fine example of its time, the old family
mansion of the Lords Semple of Castleseftiple.
Large and substantially built, it is furnished with a
projecting ocliigonal turnpike stair, over the door
to which is the boldly-cut legend —

Praised be the Lord mv God, my Strength
and my Redeemer.

Anno Dom. 1638.

Over a second doorway is the inscription— Sedes,
Manet optima Carto, with the above date repeated,
and the coat of arms of some family now unknown.
Hugh eleventh Lord Semple, in 1743 purchased
the house from two merchant burgesses of Edin-
burgh, who severally possessed it, and he converted
it into one large mansion. He had seen much
military service in Queen Anne’s wars, both in
Spain and Flanders. In 1718 he was major of the
Cameronians ; and in 1743 he commanded the
Black Watch, and held the town of Aeth when it
was besieged by the French. In 1745 he was
colonel of the 25 th or Edinburgh Regiment, and
commanded the left wing of the Hanoverian army
at the battle of Culloden.

Few families have been more associated with
Scottish song than the Semples. Prior to the
acquisition of this mansion their family residence
appears to have been in Leith, and it is referred to
in a poem by Francis Semple, of Belltrees, written
about 1680. The Lady Semple of that day, a
daughter of Sir Archibald Primrose of Dalmeny
(ancestor of the Earls of Rosebery) is tradition-
ally said to have been a Roman Catholic. Thus,
her house was a favourite resort of the priesthood
then visiting Scotland in disguise, and she had a
secret passage by which they could escape to the
fields in time of peril

Anne, fourth daughter of Hugh Lbrd Semple,
was married in September, 1754, to Dr. Austin,
of Edinburgh, author of the well-known son$.
“For lack of gold,” in allusion to Jean Drum-

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

m*CMdeBilL

mood, trf Meggiach, who jilted him for the Duke
of AthpL

u For lack of gold she left me, 0!

And of all that’s dear bereft me, O!

For Athol’s Duke
She me forsook.

And to endless care has left me, O ! ”

The Doctor died in 1774, in his house at the north-
west comer of Brown Square; but his widow
murvived him nearly twenty years. Her brother
John, twelfth Lord Semple, in 1755 sold the

up her residence for a few days after the murdei
of Rizzio, as she feared to trust herself within
the blood-stained precincts of the palace. Over
its main doorway there was cut in old Gothic
letters the legend Laus honor Deo , with I.
the initials of King James V., and at each end
were shields having the monograms of the Saviour
and the Virgin. The mansion, though it had been
sorely changed and misused, still exhibited some
large and handsome fireplaces, with beautifully
I clustered pillars, and seven elaborately sculptured

THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.

family mansion to Si? James Clerk of Penicuik,
well-known in his time as a man of taste* and the
patron of Runciman the artist.

An ancient pile of buildings, now swept away,
but which were accessible by Blyth’s, Tod's, and
Nairne’s Closes, formed once the residence of
Mazy of Lorraine and Guise, widow of James V.,
and Regent' of Scotland from 1554 to 1560. It
is conjectured that this palace and oratory were
erected immediately after the burning of Holyrood
and the city by the English in 1544, when the
widowed queen would naturally seek a more secure
habitation within the walls of the city, and close
to the Castle guns. In this edifice it is supposed
that Mary, her daughter, after succeeding in de-
taching the imbecile Damley from his party, took

stone recesses, with much fine oak carving in the
doors and panels that are still preserved. Over
one of the former are the heads of King James V.,
with his usual slouched bonnet, and of his queen,
whose well-known beauty certainly cannot be traced
in this instance.

A portion of this building, accessible by a stair
near the head of the close, contained a hall, with
other apartments, all remarkable for the great
height and beauty of their ceilings, on all of which
were coats armorial in fine stucco. In the de-
corated chimney of the former were the remains
of one of those chains to which, in Scotland, the
poker and tongs were usually attached, to prevent
their being used as weapons in case of any sudden
quarrel One chamber was long known as the

Ctfd* Hill*]

THE GUISE PALACE.

aueen’s Deid-room , where the individuals of the
royal establishment were kept between their death
m d buriaL In 1828 there was found walled up
in the oratory an infantine head and hand in wax,
being all that remained of a bambino , or figure of
the child Jesus, and now preserved by the Society
of Antiquaries. The edifice had many windows
on the northern side, and from these a fine view

spent her youth in the proud haHs of the Guise*
in Picardy, and had been the spouse of a Lon-
gueville, was here content to live — in a dose in
Edinburgh I In these obscurities, too, was a
government conducted, which had to struggle with
Knox, Glencaim, James Stewart, Morton, and
many other powerful men, backed by a popular
sentiment which never fails to triumph. It was

must have been commanded of the gardens in
the immediate foreground, sloping downward to
the loch, the opposite bank, with its farm-houses,
he Firth of Forth, and Fifeshire. “ It was inter-
esting/* says the author of “Traditions of Edin-
burgh,** 41 to wander through the dusky mazes of
this ancient building, and reflect that they had
been occupied three centuries ago by a sovereign
princess, and of rise most illustrious lineage. Here
was a substantial monument of the connection
between Scotland and Fiance. She, whose an-
cestors owned Lorraine as a sovereignty, who had

the misfortune of Mary (of Guise) to be placed in
a position to resist the Reformation. Her own
character deserved that she should have stood in
a more agreeable relation to what Scotland now
venerates, for she was mild and just, and sincerely
anxious for the welfare of her adopted country. . It
is also proper to remember on the present o c c a si on,
that in her Court she maintained a decent gravity,
nor would she tolerate any licentious practices
therein. Her maids of honour were always busied
in commendable exercises, she herself being in
example to diem in virtue, piety, and modesty.

#:*

94

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH* ‘

[The Castle Hill

Wh en ill is conskjp-ed, and we further know that
the building^was strong enough to have lasted
muff matt ages, one cannot but regret that the
'pidace of Mary de Guise, reduced as it was to vile-
nets, should not now be in existence. The site
having been purchased by individuals connected
vrith the Free Church, the buildings were removed
in 1846 to make room for the erection of an aca-
demical institution, or college, for that body.”

The demolition of this mansion brought to light
a concealed chamber on the first floor, lighted by a
narrow loophole opening into Naime’s Close. The
entrance had been by a movable panel, affording ac-
cess to a narrow flight of steps wound round in the
wall of the turnpike stair. The existence of this
mysterious chamber was totally unknown to the va-
rious inhabitants, and all tradition has been lost of
those to whom it may have afforded escape or refuge.

The Duke of Devonshire possesses an undoubted
portrait of Mary of Guise. It represents her with
a brilliantly fair complexion, with reddish, or
auburn hair. This is believed to be the only
authentic one in existence. The portrait alleged
to be of her in the Trinity House at Leith is a bad
copy, by Mytens, of that of her daughter at St.
James's. Some curious items connected with her
Court are to be found in the accounts of the Lord
High Treasurer, among them are the following : —
At her coronation in 1540, “Item, deliverit to
ye French telzour, tor be ane cote to Serrat, the
Queen's fule," &c. Green and yellow seem to have

been the Court fool’s livery ; but Mary of Guise
appears to have had a female buffoon and male
and female dwarfs: — “1562. Paid for ane cote,
hois, lyning and making, to Jonat Musche, fule,
£4 $s. 6 d. ; 1565, for green plaiding to make
ane bed to Jardinar the fule, with white fustione
fedders,” &c. ; in 1 566, there is paid for a garment
of red and yellow, to be a gown “ for Jane Colqu-
houn, fule;" and in 1567, another entry, for broad
English yellow, “ to be cote, breeks, also sarkis,
to James Geddie, fule.”

The next occupant of the Guise palace, or of
that portion thereof which stood in Tod's Close, was
Edward Hope, son of John de Hope, a French-
man who had come to Scotland in the retinue of
Magdalene,' first queen of James V., in 1537.

It continued in possession of the Hopes till 1691,
when it was acquired by James, first Viscount Stair,
for 3,000 guilders, Dutch money, probably in con-
nection with 6ome transaction in Holland, from
whence he accompanied William of Orange four
years before. In 1702 it was the abode and pro-
perty of John Wightman of Mauldsie, afterwards
Lord Provost of the city. From that period it was
the residence of a succession of wealthy burgesses
— the closes being then, and till a comparatively
recent period, exclusively occupied by peers and
dignitaries of rank and wealth. Since then it shared
the fate of all the patrician dwellings in old Edin-
burgh, and became the squalid abode of a host of
families in the most humble ranks of life.

CHAPTER X.

THE LAWNMARKET.

The Lawnmvket— Risps — The Weigh-houie— Major Somerville and Captain Crawford— Andenon's Pills— Mylne's Court— James’s Court-
Sir John Lauder— Sir Islay Campbell— David Hume—** Corsica " Boswell— Dr. Johnson— Dr. Blair— Gladstone’s Land— A Fire in 1771.

The Lawnmarket is the^general designation of that
part of the town which is a continuation of the
High Street, but lies between the head of the old
West Bow and St. Giles's Church, and is about 510
feet in length. Some venerable citizens still living
can recall the time when this spacious and stately
thoroughfare used to be so covered by the stalls
and canvas booths of the “ lawn-merchants," with
their webs and rolls of doth of every description,
that it gave the central locality an appearance of
something between a busy country fair and an
Indian camp. Like many other customs of the
olden time this has passed away, and the name
alone remains to indicate the former usages of the
place, although the importance of the street was
such that its occupants had a community of their

own called the Lawnmarket Club, which was
famous in its day for the earliest possession of
English and foreign intelligence.

Among other fashions and customs departed, it
may be allowable here to notice an adjunct of the
first-floor dwellings of old Edinburgh. The means
of bringing a servant to the door was neither a
knocker nor bell, but an apparatus peculiar to
Scotland alone, and still used in some parts of Fife,
called a risp, which consists of a slender bar of
serrated or twisted iron screwed to the door in an
upright position, about two inches from it, and
furnished with a large ring, by which the bar could
be rasped, or risped, in such a way as secured at-
tention. In many instances the doors were also
furnished with two eyelet-holes, through which the

^uwfflnutet] MAJOR SOMERVILLE.

visitor could be fully vis<*d before admission was of honour, Crawford took off ^ Hat, and betted
accorded. In many other instances the entrances pardon, on which Somerville jerked his lo ng bowl-
t0 the turnpike stairs had loopholes for arrows or hilted rapier into its sheath, and said, with scorn
musketry, and the archways to the closes and “ You have neither the discretion of a gentleman*
wynds had single and sometimes double gates, the nor the courage of a soldier; begone for a coward
great hooks of which still remain in some places, and fool, fit only for Bedlam !” and he returned
and on which these were last hung in 1745, prior to the Castle, accompanied by his officers, who
to the occupation of the city by the Highlanders, had followed them to see the result of the quarrel.

The Lawnmarket was bounded on the west by It is said that Crawford had been offended at
the Butter Tron, or Weigh-house, and on the east not being invited to a banquet given in the Castle
by the TolSooth, which adjoined St. Giles’s, thus by Somerville to old General Ruthven, on the
forming in earlier times the greatest open space, day after the latter surrendered. As great liberties
save the Grassmarket, within the walls. The Weigh- were taken with him after this in consequence of
house, built on ground which was granted to the his doubtful reputation for courage, he resolved,
citizens by David II., in 1352, was a clumsy and by satisfaction demanded in a public and desper-
hideous edifice, rebuilt in 1660, on the site of the ate manner, to retrieve his lost honour, or die in
previous building, which Gordon of Rothiemay, in seeking it. Thus, one forenoon, about eleven
his map of 1647, shows to have been rather an o’clock, when the Major was on his way to visit
ornate edifice, two storeys in height, with a double General Sir Alexander Leslie, and proceeding
outside stair on the south side, and steeple and down the spacious Lawnmarket, which at that hour
vane at the east end, above an archway, where was always thronged with idlers, he was suddenly
enormous quantities of butter and cheese were confronted by Captain Crawford, who, unsheathing
continually being disposed o£ (See pp. 1 12, 332.) both sword and dagger, exclaimed, “ If you be a
In 1640 the Lawnmarket was the scene of a pretty man— draw!" With a thick walking cane
remarkable single combat, of which we have a very recently presented to him by General Ruthven,
clearly-detailed account in “ The Memoirs of the the Major parried his onset and then drew his
Somervilles.” In that year, when Major Somer- sword, which was, a half-rapier slung in a shoulder-
ville of Drum commanded the garrison of Cove- belt, and attacked the Captain so briskly, that he
naming troops in Edinburgh Castle, a Captain was forced to fall back, pace by pace, fighting des-
Crawford, who, though not one of his officers, perately, from the middle of the Lawnmarket to the
deemed himself privileged to enter the fortress at goldsmiths’ booths, where Somerville struck hiir
all times, walked up to the gates one morning, and, down on the causeway by the iron pommel of his
on finding them closed, somewhat peremptorily sword, and disarmed him. Several of Somerville’s
demanded admission. The sentinel within told soldiers now came upon the scene, and by these

him that he must “ before entering, acquaint Major he would have been slain, had not the victor pro-
Somerville with his name and rank.” To this tected him; but for this assault upon a supeiior

Crawford replied, furiously, “ Your major is neither
a soldier nor a gentleman, and if he were without
this gate, and at a distance from his guards, I would
tell him that he was a pitiful cullion to boot ! ”

The irritated captain was retiring down the
Castle Hill, when he was overtaken, rapier in hand,
by Major Somerville, to whom the sentinel had
found means to convey the obnoxious message
^th mischievous precision.

“ Sir," said the major, “ you must permit me to
accompany you a little way, and then you shall
know more of my mind.” “ I will wait on you where
you please,” replied Crawford, grimly; and they
talked together in silence to the south side of the !
Greyfrian churchyard, at all times a lonely place. |
“ Now? said Somerville, unsheathing his sword,

41 1 am without the Castle gates and at a distance j
my guards. Draw and make good your j
thteat ! ” Instead of defending himself like a man

1 officer he was thrown into prison, where he lay for
a year, heavily manacled, and in a wretched con-
' dition, till Somerville's wife, who resided at the Drum
| House, near Gilmerton, and to whom he had writ-
ten an imploring letter, procured his liberation.

Here in the Lawnmarket, in the lofty tenement
dated 1690, on the second floor, is the “shop"
where that venerable drug, called the “ Grana
Angelica,” but better known among the country
people as “Anderson’s Pills,” are sold They
took their origin from a physician of the time
of Charles L, who gave them his name, and of
whom a long account was given in the University
Magazine* and locally their feme lasted for neatly
250 years. From his daughter Lilias Anderson,,
the patent, granted by James VTL, came “to
Thomas Weir, chinxrgeon, in Edinburgh, ” who left
the secret of preparing the pills to his daughter,
Mrs. Irving, who died in 1837, at the age of

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

96

ninety-mile. Portsaits of Anderson and his daugh-
ter, in Vandyke costumes, the former with a book
Ulttishaiid, and the latter with a pill the size of a
walnut between her fingers, are still preserved in
the home. It was in 1635 that the Doctor first

tablature, bearing the date 1690, is the mafa en .
trance to this court, the principal house of which,
forming its northern side, has a very handsome
doorway, peaked in the centre, like an ogee arch,
with ornate mouldings that mark the handiwork of

ASSEMBLY HALL. {Frtm mm Engr*nni fiubiukcd m 1645.)

made known the virtues of his pills, which is really
a good form of aloetic medicine.

In Mylne’s Court, on the north side of the Lawn-
' market, we find the first attempt to substitute an
open "square of some space for the narrow doses
which so long contained the town residences of
die Scottish noblesse. Under a Roman Doric en-

the builder, Robert Mylne, who erected the more
modem portions of Holyrood Palace — the seventh
royal master-mason, whose unde’s tomb, on the
east side of the Greyfrian churchyard, bean that
he—

M Sixth matter-muon to a royal race,

Of seven socceuhre kinga, sleeps in this place.”

The L»wniBMk«**l

JAMES’S COURT.

The edifice that forms the west side of Mylne’s
Court belongs to an earlier period, and had once
been the side of the close. The most northerly
portion, which presents a very irregular but most
picturesque facade, with dormer windows above
the line of the roof, was long the town mansion
of the Lairds of Comiston. Over the entrance is
a very common Edinburgh legend, Blissit . be . God
in .al.his. Giftis , and the date, 1 580. Bartholomew
Somerville, a merchant and burgess, was one of
the earliest ‘'inhabitants of this edifice, and his
name appears con-
spicuously among
those to whose liber-
ality Edinburgh was
indebted for the es-
tablishment of her
University on a last-
ing basis. Here also
resided Sir John Har-
per of Cambusnethan.

In 1710, Lord
Fouruainhall reports
a case connected
wit> this court, in
which Bailie Michael
Allan, a proprietor
there, endeavoured to
prevent the entrance
of “ heavy carriages,”
which damaged his
cellar under the pend
thereto.

The last person of
rank resident here
was Lady Isabella
Douglas, who had a
house on the west
side of it in 1761.

Robert, the son ot
Mylne, the builder, who was bom in 1734, settled
m London as an architect, and his plan for con-
structing a bridge at Blackfriars was preferred to
those of twenty other candidates,* and on its com-
pletion he was appointed surveyor of St Paul’s
Cathedral, with a salary of ^300 per annum.

Eastward of Mylne's Court is James's Court,
a more modem erection of the same kind,
associated, in various ways, with some of the most
eminent men in the Scottish capital ; for here
resided David Hume, after his removal from Jack’s
Land in the Canongate, in 1762 ; in the same
house afterwards dwelt Boswell, and here he wel-
comed Paoli, the Corsican chiefs in 1771, and the

la

still more illustrious Dr. Johnson, when, in 1773*
he was on his way to the Western Isles.

James’s Court occupies the site of some now
forgotten closes, in one of which dwelt Sir John
Lauder, afterwards Lord Fountainhall, author of the
famous “ Decisions ” and other works. At the
trial of the Earl of Argyle, in i68x, for an alleged
illegal construction of die Test, Lauder acted as
counsel for that unfortunate nobleman, together
with Sir George Lockhart and six other advocates.
These having all signed an opinion that his explana

don of the Tes$ con-
tained nothing trea-
sonable, were sum-
moned before the
Privy Council, and
after being examined
on oath, were dis-
missed with a warn-
ing qnd censure by
the Cuke of Albany.
Though it is so long
ago as September,
1722, since Lord
Fountainhall died, a
tradition of his resi-
dence has come down
to the present time.
“The mother of the
late Mr. Gilbert Innes
of Stow," says Cham-
bers, “was a daughter
of his lordship’s son,
Sir Andrew Lauder,
ahd she used to de-'
scribe to her children
the visits she used
to pay to her vener-
able grandfather’s
house, situated, as
she said, where James’s Court now stands. She
and her sister always went with their maid on the
Saturday afternoons, and were shown into a room
where the aged judge was sitting — a room covered
with gilt leather, and containing many huge presses
and cabinets, one of which was ornamented with s
death’s head at the top. After amusing themsdvei
for an hour or two with his lordship they used each
to get a shilling from him, and retire,/ . . • li
is curious to think that the mother of a g entlem an
living in 1839 (few only then did Mrs, to n e s of
Stow leave this earthly scene) should have beet
familiar with a lawyer who entered at the bar sot®
after the Restoration (1668), and acted as co u n sel
hr the turibrtrmate Earl of Argyle in 1681—* befog

THE ORATORY OF MARY OF GUISE.

• “UdnANc*

U, p*. 909 - 6 .

OLD AND NEW EDINBURQH.

«f m age aa different h every respect from the
pres e n t aa the wilds of North America are different
4m the long-practised lands of Lothian or Devon-

\ |n James's Court was the residence of Sir Islay
Campbell, Lord President, whose mother was Helen
Wallace, a daughter of the house of Ellerslie. Ad-

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OAK DOOR, FROM THR GUISE PALACE.
{From the Original in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.)

snitted to the bar in 1757, he was one of the counsel
for the defender in the famous Douglas case, and,
on the decision of the House of Lords being given,
he posted to Edinburgh ere the mail could arrive,
and was the first to announce to the crowds assem-
bled at the Cross the great intelligence. “ Douglas
for ever 1 " he cried, waving his hat in the air.

A shout from the people responded, and, untrac-
ing the homes from his carriage, they drew it in
triumph to his house in James's Court, probably
the same in which his father, who was long one of
the principal dwks of Session, resided.

P3m Lamunufa^

This court is a well-known pile of building
which rises to a vast height at the head of the
Earthen Mound, and was erected between 1725
and 1727 by James Brownhill, a speculative builder
and for years after it was deemed a fashionable
quarter, the denizens of which were all persons of
good position, though each occupied but a flat or
floor ; they clubbed in all public measures, kept a
secretary to record their names and proceedings,
and had balls and parties among themselves ; but
among the many local notables who dwelt here the
names of only three, Hume, Boswell, and Dr. Blair,
are familiar to us now. Burton, the biographer of
the historian of England, thus 'describes this great
fabric, the western portion of which was destroyed
by fire in 1858, and has erected on its site, in
the old Scottish style, an equally lofty structure for
the Savings Bank and Free Church offices ; con-
sequently the houses rendered so interesting by the
names of Hume, Blair, Johnson, and Boswell, are
among the things that were. “Entering one of
the doors opposite to the main entrance, the
stranger is sometimes led by a friend, wishing to
afford him an agreeable surprise, down flight after
flight of the steps of a stone staircase, and when
he imagines he is descending so far into the bowels
of the earth, he emerges on the edge of a cheerful,
crowded thoroughfare, connecting together the old
and new town, the latter of which lies spread be-
fore him in a contrast to the gloom from which he
has emerged. When he looks up to the building
containing the upright street through which he has
descended, he sees that vast pile of tall houses
standing at the head of the Mound, which creates
astonishment in eveiy visitor of Edinburgh. This
vast fabric is built on the declivity of a hill, and
thus one entering on the level of the Lawnmarket,
is at the height of several storeys from the ground
on the side next the New Town. I have ascertained
that by ascending the western of the two stairs
facing the entry of Jarads's Court to the height of
three storeys we arrive at the door of David Hume’s
house, which, of the two doors on that landing place,
is the one towards the left”

The first fixed residence of David Hume was in
Riddell's Land, Lawnmarket, near the head of the
West Bow. From thence he removed to Jack’s
Land, in the Canongate, where nearly the whole of
his “ History of England ” was written ; and it is
somewhat singular that Dr. Smollett, the continuator
of that work, lived some time after in his sister's
house, exactly opposite. The great historian and
philosopher dwelt but a short time in James's Court,
when he went to France aa Secretary to the Em-
bassy. During his absence^ which lasted some

DR. JOHNSON.

9f

years> his house was rented by Dr. Blair ; but amid
the gaieties of Paris his mind would seem to have
reverted to his Scottish home. “I am sensible
that I am misplaced, and I wish twice or thrice
a-day for my easy-chair, and my retreat in James? s
Court? he wrote to his friend Dr. Ferguson;
then he added, as Burton tells us, “ Never think,
dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of
your own fireside and your own time, you can be
unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add
to your enjoyment” “Never put a fire in the
south room with the red paper,” he wrote to Dr.
Blair ; “ it is so warm of itself, that all last winter,
which was a very severe one, I lay with a single
blanket, and frequently, upon coming in at midnight
starving with cold, I have sat down and read for
an hour as if I had a stove in the room.” One
of his most intimate friends and correspondents
while in France was Mrs. Cockbum of Ormiston,
authoress of one of the beautiful songs called “ The
Flowers of the Forest,” who died at Edinburgh,
1794. Some of her letters to Hume are dated in
1764, from Baird’s Close, on the Castle Hill.
About the year 1766, when still in Paris, he began
to uiink of settling there, and gave orders to sell
his house in James’s Court, and he was prevented
from doing so only by a mere chance. Leaving
the letter of instruction to be posted by his Parisian
landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with
the Countess de Boufflers at LTsle Adam ; but a
snow storm had blocked up the roads. He re-
turned to Paris, and finding that his letter had not
yet been posted, he changed his mind, and
thought that he had better retain his flat in James’s
Court, to which he returned in 1766. He soon
after left it as Under-Secretary of State to General
Conway, but in 1769, on the resignation of that
Minister, he returned again to James’s Court, with
what was then deemed opulence — ;£ 1,000 per an-
num — and became the head of that brilliant circle
of literary men who then adorned Edinburgh. “I
am glad to come within sight of you,” he wrote to
Adam Smith, then busy with “TTie Wealth of
Nations” in the quietude of his mother's house,

“ and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows ;
but I wish also to be on speaking terms with you.”
In another letter he speaks of c( my old house in
James’s Court, which is very cheerful and very
elegant, but too small to display my great talent
for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict
the remaining years of my life.”

Elsewhere we shall find David Hume in a more
fashionable abode in the new town of Edinburgh,
and on his finally quitting James's Court, his house
there was leased by James Boswell, whose character

is thus summed up by Lord Macaulay “ Servile
and impertinent, shallow and pedaxltic, a bigot and
a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally blus-
tering about the dignity of a bom gentleman, yet
stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a
common butt in the taverns of London ; so curious*
to know everybody who was talked about that,
Tory and High Churchman though he was, he*
manoeuvred for an introduction to Tom Paine ; so-
vain of the most childish distinctions, that when he
had been to Court he drove to the office where,
his book was printing, without changing his clothes,
and summons! all the { rinter’s devils to admire*
his new ruffles and Such was this man*,

and such he was oontent to be.”

He was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell, one
of the Judges of the Court of Session, a sound!
scholar, a respectable and useful country gentle-
man, an able and upright judge, who, on hi»
elevation to the Bench, in compliance with the
Scottish custom, assumed the distinctive title of
Lord Auchinleck, from his estate in Ayrshire^
His mother, Eupham Erskine, a descendant of the
line of Alloa, from the House of Mar, was a woman
of exemplary piety. To James's Court, Boswell,
in August, 1773, conducted Dr. Johnson, from the
White Horse Hostel, in St Mary’s Wynd, then
one of the principal inns of Edinburgh, where he
found him storming at the waiter for having sweet-
ened his lemonade without using the sugar-tongs.
“Johnson and I,” says Boswell, “walked arm-in-
arm up the High Street to my house in James’s
Court, and as we went, he acknowledged that the
breadth of the street and the loftiness of the build-
ings on each side made a noble appearance.” “My
wife had tea ready for him,” he adds, “and we sat
chatting till nearly two in the morning.” It would
appear that before the time of the visit— which
lasted over several days — Boswell had removed
into a better and larger mansion, immediately
below and on the level of the court, a somewhat
extraordinary house in its time, as it consisted of
two floors with an internal stair. Mrs. Boswell,,
who was Margaret Montgomery, a relation of the
Earl of Eglinton, a gentlewoman of good breeding
and brilliant understanding, was disgusted with the
bearing and manners of Johnson, and expressed
her opinion of him that he was “a great brute!”
And well might she think so, if Macaulay's de-
scription of him be correct “He could fast*
but when he did not fast he tore his dinner like
a famished wolf, with the veins swelling in his
forehead, and the perspiration running down
cheeks ; he scarcely ever took wine ; but when
he drank it, he drank it greedily and in laxgy

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH

W

tpo

tfflftttoli Everything about him— his coat, his
*|g; bis figure; his face, his scrofula, his St Vitus’s
dance, bis tolling walk, his blinking eyes, his in-
finable appetite for fish sauce and veal pie with
pfafins, bis mysterious practice of treasuring up
ficraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his

saw a man led by a bear!” So romantic and
fervid was his admiration of Johnson, that he tells
us he added ^500 to the fortune of one of his
daughters, Veronica, because when a baby she was
not frightened by the hideous visage of the lexica,
grapher.

LORD SIMPLE*S HOUSE, CASTLE HILL.

midnight disputations, his contortions, his mut-
terings, his grantings, his puffings, his vigorous,
acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his
veh e m e nce and his insolence, his fits of tempes-
tuous rage,” fire., all served to make it a source of
wonder to Mrs. Boswell that her husband could
•bide, much less worship, such a man. Thus, she
once ssad to him, with extreme warmth, “I have
fieen many a hear led by a man, but I never before

Among those invited to meet Him at James’s
Court was Margaret Duchess of Douglas, a lady
noted among those of her own rank for her illi-
teracy, and whom Johnson describes as “ talking
broad Scotch with a paralytic voice; as scarcely
understood by her own countrymen;" yet it was
remarked that in that which we would term now a
spirit of “ snobbery," Johnson reserved his atten-
tions during the whole evening exclusively for the

The Lawnnuuk***]

JAMES BOSWELL

. w
ioi

duchess. A daughter of Douglas of Mains, she was
the widow of Archibald Duke of Douglas, who died
in 1761-

While on this visit, Patrick Lord Elibank, a
learned and accomplished noble, addressed a letter
to him, and they afterwards had various conver-
sations on literary subjects, all of which are duly

On one occasion he was in a large paity,oi
which David Hume was one. A mutual Mend
proposed to introduce him to the historian. u No,
sir ! ” bellowed the intolerant moralist, and turned
away. Among Boswell's friends and visitors fct
James’s Court were Lords Karnes and Haflqp, the
annalist of Scotland ; Drs. llobertson, Blair, and

HAKY OP GUIS*. (From Uu Portrait in tko jornnim of tho Dukt Dtoomokiro.)

recorded in the pages of the sycophantic BoswelL
Johnson was well and hospitably received by all
classes in Edinburgh, where his roughness of
Banner and bearing were long proverbial. “ From
all I can learn," says Captain Topham, who visited
the city in the following year, 44 he repaid all their
attention to him with ill-breeding; and when in
the company of the ablest men in this country
his whole design was to show them how little he
thought of diem.”

Beattie, and others, the most eminent of his
countrymen ; but his strong predilection for
London induced him to move there with Us
family, and in the winter of 1786 he 7 was called to
the English bar. His old house was not imme-
diately abandoned to the plebeian population,, as
his successor in it was Lady Wallace, dowager of
Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and mother of the
unfortunate Captain William Wallace ef the 15th
Hussars, whose involvement in the affiurs of the

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH*

RfaLrauuket.

m?

Dok Of Yofk and Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke made
M qw in London during the time of the
Kfigesqr. The house below those occupied by
9 m and by Boswell was the property and resi-
4 mce of Andrew Macdowal of Logan, author of the
“Institutional Law of Scotland,” afterwards
feinted to the bench, in 1755, as Lord Bankton.

In another court named Paterson’s, opening on
the Lawnmarket, Margaret Countess Dowager of
Glasgow was resident in 1761, and for some years
• before it Her husband, the second earl, died in
1740.

One of the handsomest old houses still , existing in
the Lawnmarket is the tall and narrow tenement of
polished ashlar adjoining James's Court; It is of
a marked character, and highly adorned. Of old
it belonged to Sir Robert Bannatyne, but in 1631
was acquired by Thomas Gladstone, a merchant
burgess, and on the western gable are the initials
of himself and wife. In 1634, when the city was
divided for the formation of sixteen companies, in
obedience to an injunction of Charles I., the

second division was ordered to terminate at
“ Thomas Gladstone's Land," on the north side of
the street

In 1771 a dangerous fire occurred in the Lawn-
market, near the head of the old Bank Close. It
was first discovered by the flames bursting through
the roof of a tall tenement known as Buchanan’s.
It baffled the efforts of three fire-engines and
a number of workmen, and some soldiers of the
22nd regiment It lasted a whole night, and
created the greatest consternation and some loss
of life. “ The new church and weigh-house were
opened during the fire,’* says the Scots Magazine
of 1771, “ for the reception of the goods and
furniture belonging to the sufferers and the inha-
bitants of the adjacent buildings, which were kept
under guard.” Damage to the extent of several
thousand pounds was done, and among those who
suffered appear the names of General Lockhart of
Camwath; Islay Campbell, advocate; John Bell,
W.S. ; and Hume of Ninewells ; thus giving a
sample of those who still abode in the Lawnmarket.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAWNMARKET {continued).

Lady Stair's Close— Gray of Pittendrum— 1 " Aunt Margaret's Minn "—The Marshal Earl and Countess of Stair— Mias Ferrier— Sir Richard
Steele— Martha Countess of Kincardine— Burns’s Room in Baxter’s Close— The Bridges' Shop in Bank Street— Bailie MacMorran *
Story— Sir Francis Qrant of Cullen.

Prior to the opening of Bank Street, Lady Stair’s I
Close, the first below Gladstone’s Land, was the
chief thoroughfare for foot passengers, taking ad-
vantage of the half-formed Earthen Mound to reach
the New Town. It takes its name from Elizabeth
Countess Dowager of Stair, who was long looked
up to as a leader of fashion in Edinburgh, admis-
sion to her select circle being one of the highest
objects of ambition among the lesser gentry of her
day, when the distinctions of rank and family were
guarded with an angry jealousy of which we have
but little conception now. Lady Stair’s Close is
panrow and dark, for the houses are of great height ;
the house she occupied still remains on the west
ride thereof, and was the scene of some romantic
events and traditions, of which Scott made able
use in his “ Aunt Margaret’s Mirror,” ere it be-
came die abode of the widow of the Marshal Earl of
Stair, who, when l little boy, had the misfortune to
kfll his elder brother, the Master; by the accidental
discharge of a pistol; after which, it is said, that
Ms mother could never abide him, and sent him

in his extreme youth to serve in Flanders as a
volunteer in the Cameromen Regiment, under the
Earl of Angus. The house occupied by Lady Stair
has over its door the pious legend —

" Feare the Lard and depart from evill \ n

with the date 1622, and the initials of its founder
and of his wife — Sir William Gray of Pittendrum,
and Egidia Smith, daughter of Sir John Smith, of
Groat Hall, near Craigleith, Provost of Edinburgh in
1643. Sir William was a man of great influence in
the time of Charles I. ; and though the ancient title
of Lord Gray reverted to his family, he devoted
himself to commerce, and became one of the
wealthiest Scottish merchants of that age. But
troubles came upon him; he was fined 100,000
merks for corresponding with Montrose, and was
imprisoned, first in the Castle and then in the
Tolbooth till the mitigated penalty of 35,000 merks
was paid. Other exorbitant exactions followed, and
these hastened his death, which took place in
1648. Three years before that event, Ms daughter.

trfyStti ftOou.1

THE MAGIC MIRROR.

died, in the old house, of the plague. His widow
survived him, and the street was named Lady
Gray's Close till the advent of Lady Stair, in whose
time the house had a terraced garden that descended
towards the North Loch.

Lady Eleanor Campbell, widow of the great
•marshal and diplomatist, John Earl of Stair, was
by paternal descent related to one of the most
celebrated historical figures of the seventeenth
century, being the grand-daughter of the Lord High
Chancellor Loudon, whose talents and influence on
the Covenanting side procured him the enmity of
Charles I.

In her girlhood she had the misfortune to be
united to James Viscount Primrose, of Castlefield,
who died in 1706, a man of dissipated habits and
intolerable temper, who treated her so barbarously
that there were times when she had every reason to
fear that her life was in periL One morning she
was dressing herself before her mirror, near an open
window, when she saw the viscount suddenly appear
in the room behind her with a drawn rapier in his
hand. He had softly opened the door, and in the
mirror she could see that his face, set white and
savage, indicated that he had nothing less than
murder in his mind. She threw herself out of
window into the street, and, half-dressed as she
was, fled, with great good sense, to Lord Primrose's
mother, who had been Mary Scott of Thirlstane,
and received protection ; but no attempt was made
to bring about a reconciliation, and, though they
had four children, she never lived with him again,
and soon after he went abroad.

During his absence there came to Edinburgh a
certain foreign conjurer, who, among other occult
powers, professed to be able to inform those present
of the movements of the absent, however far they
might be apart; and the young viscountess was
prompted by curiosity to go with a lady friend to
the abode of the wise man in the Canongate, wear,
ing over their heads, by way of disguise, the tartan
plaid then worn by women of the lower classes.
After describing the individual in whose move-
ments she was interested, and expressing a desire
to know what he was then about, the conjurer led
her before a large mirror, in which a number of
colours and forms rapidly assumed the appearance
of a church with a marriage party before the altar;
and in the shadowy bridegroom she instantly
recognised her absent husband 1 She gazed upon
the delineation as if turned to stone, while the
ceremonial of the marriage seemed to proceed, and
the clergyman to be on the point of bidding the
bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly a
.gentleman in whose face die recognised a brother

of her own, came forward, and paused. His fac$ v
assumed an expression of wrath ; drawing hisirad
he rushed upon the bridegroom, who also drew to
defend himself ; the whole phantasmagoria then
became tumultuous and indistinct, and faded com-
pletely away. When the viscountess reached home
she wrote a minute narrative of the events noting
the day and hour. This narrative she sealed up in
presence of a witness and deposited it in a cabinet
Soon after this her brother returned from his travels
abroad — which brother we are not told, and she
had three : Hugh the Master of Loudon, Colonel
John Campbell of ShatfKeston, and James, who was
Colonel of the Scots 5reys, and was killed at
Fontenoy. She mked him if he heard aught of
the viscount in his wanderings. He answered,
furiously, (< I wish I may never again hear the
name of that detestable personage mentioned ! 19
On being questioned he confessed to w having met
his lordship under very strange circumstances.* 9
While spending some time at Rotterdam he made
the acquaintance of a wealthy merchant who had
a very beautiful daughter, an only child, who, he
informed him, was on the eve of her marriage with
a Scottish gentleman, and he was invited to the
wedding as a countryman of the bridegroom. He
went accordingly, and though a little too late for
the commencement of the ceremony, was yet in
time to save an innocent girl from becoming the vic-
tim of his own brother-in-law, Viscount Primrose I

Though the deserted wife had proved her willing-
ness to believe in the magic mirror, by having
committed to writing what she had seen, yet she
was so astonished by her brother's tidings, that she
nearly fainted ; but something more was to be
learned stilL She asked her brother on what day
the circumstance took place, and having been
informed, she gave him her key, and desired him
to bring to her the sealed paper. On its being
opened, it was then found, that at the very moment
when she had seen the roughly-interrupted nuptial
ceremony it had actually been in progress.

Primrose died, as we have said, in the year before
the Union. His widow was still young and beauti fu l,
but made a resolution never again, after her past
experience, to become a wife ; but the great Earl
of Stair, who had been now resident some twenty
years in Edinburgh, and whose public and private
character was irreproachable, earnestly sued for
her hand, yet she firmly announced her in te n t ion
of remaining unwedded ; and in his love and des-
peration the Earl bethought him of an exp edi en t
indicative of the roughness and in d elic acy of the
age By dint of powerfully bribing her household
he got himself introduced om|jjht into a small

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

— " > ,l 7 i i.

toon* wheteshe ms wont to say her prayers — such
private Oeatories being common in most of the
JSdhbmgk bouses of the time — and the window of
•bicji overlooked the High Street Thereat he
Jmoihmudf, en dishabille , to the people passing,
aa exhibition which so seriously affected the repu- 1

tation of the young widow, that she saw the neces-
sity of accepting him as her husband.

Lady Eleanor was happier as Countess of Stair
than she had ever been as Viscountess Primrose
but the Earl had one failing — a common one
enough among gentlemen in those days — a dispo-
sition to indulge in the bottle, and then his temper
was by no means improved; thus, on coming
bane he more Bun once treated the Counteas

with violence. Once— we regret to record it 0 fiw
heroic a soldier— when transported beyond the
bounds of reason, he gave her a blow on the face
with such severity as to draw blood; and then
all unconscious of what he had done, fell asleep’
Poor Lady Stair, overwhelmed by such an insult]

and recalling perhaps much that she had endured
with Lord Primrose, made no attempt to bind up
the wound, but threw herself on & sofa, and wept
and bled till morning dawned When the Earl
awoke, her bloody and dishevelled aspect filled
him with horror and dismay. “ What has hap-
pened? How came you to be thus ?” he exclaimed
She told him of his conduct over-night, which filled
him with shame inch shame and compunction*'

THE LAWN MARKET, FROM THE SITE OF THE WEIGH-HOUSE, 1825. (A/Ur Ewbank .)

^ysa ificu**-] MARSHAL STAIR. w

that he made a vow never again to take any species when the procession began, as a signal to the
' of drink, unless it had first passed through her garrison in the Castle, when the flag was half
hands ; and this vow he kept religiously till the hoisted, and minute guns were fired, till the funeral
day of his death, which took place on the 9th was clear of the city.

May, i 747 > Queensberry House in the Canon- With much that was irreproachable in fier chamc-
gate, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. He ter, Lady Stair was capable of ebullitions of temper,
was General of the Marines, Governor of Minorca, and of using terms that modem taste would deem
Colonel of the Greys, and Knight of the Thistle, objectionable. The Earl of Dundonald had stated to
He was buried in the family vault at Kirkliston, the Duke of Douglas that Lady Stair had expressed
and .his funeral is thus detailed in the Scots Maga - her doubts concerning the birth of his nephew—
zinc for’ 1 747 a much-vexed question, at this time before the

THE LAWNMARKET, PROM ST. GILES’S, l8 *5- {A/Ur SwtmA.)

“ x. Six bdton men, two and two. 2. A mourn- House of Lords and Court of Session. In sup
ing coach with four gentlemen ushers and the port of what he stated, Dundonald, in a letter to
Karl's crest. 3. Another mourning coach with the I^ord Justice Clerk, gave the world leave to
three gentlemen ushers, and a friend carrying the deem him 44 a damned villain " if he spoke not the
coronet on a velvet cushion. 4. Six ushers on truth. Involved thus unpleasantly with the ducal
foot, with batons and gilt streamers. 5* The house of Douglas, Lady Stair went stoaight to
corpse, under a dressed canopy, drawn by six, Holyrood Palace, and there, before the Duke,
dressed horses, with the Earl’s achievement, within the Duchess, and their attendants, the said that
the Order of the Thistle. 6. Chief mourners she 44 had lived to a good age, and never, until
in a coach and sul 7. Nine mourning coaches, now, got entangled in any scandal" She then
each drawn by six horses. 8. The Earl’s body struck the floor thrice with her cane, each time
coach empty. 9. Carriages of nobility and gentry, j calling the Earl of Dundonald 44 a da mne d villain,"
in order of rank." ! after which she withdrew, swelling with mgs;

A sky-rocket was thrown up in the Can ong a te ; but Lady Mary Wortlcy Montagu ment io n s in her

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Bute's Cb*.

so6

-« Letten, 40 that the Countess of Stair was subject
-to hysterical fits— the result perhaps of all she had
tmtagone as a wife. After being long the queen
*of society in Edinburgh, she died in November,
*vf%% twelve years after the death of the Marshal.
•She Was the first person in the city, of her time,
who haH 2l black domestic servant. Another
•dowager, the Lady Clestram, succeeded her in the
•old house in the dose. It was advertised for
tale, at the upset price of ^250, in the Edinburgh
Advertiser of 1789; and is described as u that
large dwelling-house, sometime belonging to the
Dowager Countess of Stair, situated at the entry
to the Earthen Mound. The sunk storey consists
•of a good kitchen, servants* rooms, closets, cellars,
&c. ; the second of a dining and bed rooms ; the
’third storey of a dining and five bed rooms/* It has
long since been the abode of the humblest artisans.

The parents of Miss Ferrier, the well-known
(novelist, according to a writer in Temple Bar for
November, 1878, occupied a flat in Lady Stair’s
‘Close after their marriage. Mrs. Ferrier {nee
•Coutts) was the daughter of a farmer at Gourdon,
near Montrose, and was a woman of remarkable
•beauty, as her portrait by Sir George Chalmers,
Bart, (a native of Edinburgh) in 1765 attests. At
the time of her marriage, in 1767, she had resided
an Holyrood with her aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Mait-
land, widow of a younger son of Lord Lauderdale;
and the flat the young married couple took in
the old close had just been vacated by Sir James
Pulteney and his wife Lady Bath.

When Sir Richard Steele, of the Spectator ■, visited
Edinburgh, in 1717, on the business of the Forfeited
Estates Commission, we know not whether he
Tesided in Lady Stab’s Close, but it is recorded
*hat he gave, in a tavern there, a whimsical supper,
*to all the eccentric-looking mendicants in the city,
giving them the enjoyment of an abundant feast,
that he might witness their various oddities.
Richard Shell mentions this circumstance, and
•adds that Steele confessed afterwards that he had
41 drunk enough of native drollery to compose a
comedy/*

Upper Baxter’s Close, the adjoining alley, is
•associated with the name of Robert Bums. There
the latter, in 1786, saved from a heartless and
bopeless exile by the generosity of the blind poet,
Dr. Blacklock, came direct from the plough and
the banka of his native Ayr, to share the humble
room and bed of his friend Richmond, a lawyer’s
<derk, in the hopse of Mrs. Caifrae. But a few
weeks before poor Bums had made arrangements
logo to Jamaica as joint overseer on an estate; but
ike publication of his poems was deemed such a

success, that he altered his plans, and came to
Edinburgh in the November of that year. In one
of the numbers of the Lounger appeared a review
of the first (or Kilmarnock) edition of his* poems,
written by Henry Mackenzie, who was thus the
means, together with Dr. Blacklock, of kindly
bringing Burns before the learned and fashionable
circles of Edinburgh. His merited fame had
come before him, and he was now caressed by all
ranks. His brilliant conversational powers seem
to have impressed all who came in contact with
him as much as admiration of his poetry. Under
the patronage of Principal Robertson, Professor
Dugald Stewart, Henry Mackenzie, author of the
44 Man of Feeling,” and Sir John Whiteford of that
ilk, but more than all of James Earl of Glencaim,
and other eminent persons, a new edition of his
poems was published in April, 1 787 ; but amid all
the adulation he received he ever maintained his
native simplicity and sturdy Scottish independence
of character. By the Earl of Glencaim he was in-
troduced to the members of the Caledonian Hunt,
and he dedicated to them the second edition of
his poems. In verse he touchingly records his
gratitude to the earl : —

“ The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen ;

The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been ;

The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ;

But I’ll remember thee, Glencaim,

And all that thou hast done for me !”

Bums felt acutely the death of this amiable and
accomplished noble, which occurred in 1791.

The room occupied by Bums in Baxter’s Close,
and from which he was wont to sally forth to dine
and sup with the magnates of the city, is still pointed
out, with its single window which opens into Lady
Stair’s Close. There, as AJlan Cunningham records,
he had but 41 his share of a deal table, a sanded
floor, and a chaff bed, at eighteenpence a week.”
According to the same biographer, the impres-
sion which Burns made at first on the fair, the
titled, and the learned, of Edinburgh, 44 though
lessened by intimacy on the part of the men,
remained unimpaired pn that of the softer sex
till his dying day. Hi*> company, during die
season of balls and festivities* continued to be
courted by all who desire^ to be reckoned gay
or polite. Cards of invitation fell thick on him ;
he was not more welcomed to the plumed and
jewelled groups whom her fascinating Grace of
Gordon gathered about her, than he was to th e
grave divines and polished scholars who assctnblfd

CIok.]

ROBERT BURNS.

107

in the rooms of Stewart, Blpir, or Robertson. . . .
But Edinburgh offered tables and entertainers of a
less staid character, when the glass circulated with
greater rapidity, when wit flowed more freely, and
when there were neither high-bred ladies to charm
conversation within the bounds of modesty, nor
serious philosophers nor grave divines to set a
limit to the licence of speech or the hours of
enjpyment To those companions, who were all
of. the better classes,
the levities of the rustic
poet’s wit and humour
were as welcome as
were the tenderest of
his narratives to the
accomplished Duchess
of Gordon or the beau-
tiful Miss Burnet of
Monboddo ; theyraised
a social roar not at all
classic,, and demanded
and provoked his sal-
lies of wild humour, or
indecorous mirth, with
as much delight as he
had witnessed among
the lads of Kyle,
when, at mill or forge,
his humorous * sallies
abounded as the ale
flowed.”

While in Edinburgh
Bums was the frequent
and welcome guest ot
John Campbell, Pre-
centor of the Canon-
gate Church, a famous
amateur vocalist in his
time, though forgotten
now ; and to him Bums
applied for an introduc-
tion to Bailie Gentle,
to the end that he mi ght: accord his tribute to the
memory of the poet, poor Robert Fergusson, whose
grave lay in the adjacent churchyard, without a
stone to mark it Bailie Gentle expressed his
entire concurrence with {he wish of Bums, but
said that “ he had no .power to grant permission
without the consent of the managers of the Kirk
funds.”

“Tell them,” said Bums, “it is the Ayrshire
ploughman who makeg the request” The authority
was obtained, and a promise given, which we
believe has been sacredly kept, that the grave
ahould remain inviolate.

After a stay of six months in Edinburgh, Bums
set out on a tour to the south of Scotland, accom-
panied by Robert Ainslie, W.S. ; but elsewhere we*
shall meet him again. Opposite the house in which
he dwelt is one with a very ancient legend, BUssit .
be. the. Lord. in. all. His .gif Hs. not), and. evir. In*
1746 this was the inheritance of Martha White,
only child of a wealthy burgess who became a
banker in London. She became the wife of
Charles ninth Earl of
Kincardine, and after-
wards Earl of 3 Elgin,

“ undoubted heir male
and chief of all the*
Bruces in Scotland/*'
as Douglas records.
The countess, who died
in 1810, filled, with*
honour to herself, the
office of governess to-
the unfortunate Princess.
Charlotte of Wales.

One of the early
breaches made in the-
vicinity of the central
thoroughfare of the city
was Bank Street, on
the north (the site of
Lower Baxter's Close),
wherein was the shop
of two eminent cloth
merchants, David
Bridges and Son, which
became the usual resort
of the whole literati of
the city in its day.
David Bridges junior
had a strongly de-
veloped bias towards,
literary studies, and,
according to the me-
moirs of Professor Wil-
son, was dubbed by the Blackwood wits, M Director-
General of the Fine Arts.” His love for these and
the drama was not to be controlled by his connec-
tion with mercantile business ; and while the senior
partner devoted himself to the avocations of trade in
one part of their well-known premises, die younger
was employed in adorning a sort of ianctum, where
one might daily meet Sir Walter Scott and his.
friend Dr Adam Ferguson (who, as a boy, hgd
often aat on the knee of David Hume), Profemor

. • Tkwfituo iKMtt m tW rfgM (pvM *>

m tit of ih> ro— occ f hd by Bmm.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

IBnkSuwt.

toft

Witoon, jf« G. Lockhart, Sir David Wilkie, and
other eminent men of the day. His writings,
spread over the periodical literature of his time—
particularly tite Edinburgh Magazine and Annual
Register — are very numerous, and he was the first
among modem Scotsmen who made art the subject

and study had suggested, it is not to be wondered
at that in exercises of this sort he took particular
delight and obtained great excellence. He was
secretary of the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh.

The establishment of the Bridges is thus re-
ferred to in Peter’s “Letters to his Kinsfolk”;—

of systematic criticism j and from the purity and
dearness of his style, his perfect knowledge of
the subject and the graceful talent he possessed
of min g lin g illustration with argument, he
an interest to a subject, which, to many, might
appear otherwise unattractive. And when it is con-
sidered that it was to the acting of the great Mra
addons, John Kemble, Kean, and Miss O’Neil,
' tfathe had to apply those rules which his taste

“ Wasde immediately conducted me to this dilet-
tanti lounge, saying, thpt here eras the only
place where I might be famished with every means
of satisfying my curiosity. On entering, one finds
a very neat and tasteful-looking shop, wefi-stocked
with all the tempting diversities of tmaddoth and
bombaseens, silk stockings and spotted handker-
chiefs. A few -sedate looking old fashioned cits arr
probably engaged in conning over the Edinburgh

Btfk Street.]

DAVID BRIDGES.

109

newspapers of the day, and perhaps discussing
purdicus the great question of Burgh Reform. . . .
After waiting for a few minutes, the younger partner
tips a sly wink across his counter, and beckons
you to follow him through a narrow cut in its

famous Hercules, the Dancing Fawn, the Lao-
coon, and the Hermaphrodite, occupy conspicuous
stations on the counters, one large table is entirely
covered with a book of Canova's designs, Turner’s
‘ Liber Studiorum,’ and such like manuals ; and in

mahogany surface, into the unseen recesses of the
establishment. A few steps downward, and in the
dark, land you in a sort of cellar, below the shop
proper, and here by the dim religious light, which
enters through one or two well-grated peeping
holes, your eyes soon discover enough of the
faniture of the place to satisfy you that you have
readied at last the sanctum sanctorum of the
fine arts. Plaster of Pads casts of the bead of the

he comers where die little light there is
lightest, are placed, upon huge pilespf c orduroy
md kerseymere, various wooden boxes^black, brown,
Ad blue, wherein are locked up from all eyes,mve
hose of privileged and initiated frequenters of the.
cene, various pictures and sketch e s, chiefly by
iving artists, and presents to die proprietne. w
, when I asked him on my first vMt what

no

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[RUMdr.Oo*.

made answer in a true technico-Caledonian strain
— 4 Oo* Doctor Morris, they are just a wheen
Mr, and* (added he, with a most knowing com-
pression of his lips)* let me tell you what, Doctor
Morris, there’s some no that ill bits among them.’
One proved to be an exquisitely finished sketch
by Sir W illiam Allan, ‘ Two Tartar robbers divid-
ing their spoil.’ This led to a proposal to visit
the artist’s atelier, and we had no great distance to
walk, for Mr. Allan lives in the Parliament Close,
not a gun-shot from where we were.”

Mr. Bridges married Flora Macdonald of Scalpa
(sister of the heroic Sir John Macdonald, whose
powerful hand, with a few of the Scots Guards,
closed the gates of Hougomont), and died in
November, 184a

One of the finest specimens of the wooden-
fronted houses of 1540 was on the south side of
the Lawnmarket, and was standing all unchanged,
after the lapse of more than 338 years, till its
demolition in 1878-9 (see the engraving after
Ewbank’s view of it, p. 104). '“ As may be ob-
served, its north front, each storey of which advances
a little over that below, is not deficient in .elegance,
there being Doric pilasters of timber interspersed
with the windows of one floor, and some decorations
on the gable presented to the street. The West
front is plainer, in consequence apparently of, re-
pairs ; but we there see the covered space in front
of the place for merchandise on the ground floor.”

A little east of the building, in the first or
smaller part of Riddell’s Close, which, like all others
on the south ride, ran down towards the Cow-
gate, a lofty tenement towers upward, with a turret
stair, dated 1726. This was the first residence of
David Hume, and* there it was he wrote the first
pages of his History. In 17,51 he came hither
from his paternal place Ninewells, near Dunse, and
soon after he wrote to Adam Smith : — “ Direct
to me in Riddell’s % Land, Lawnmarket * . .
I have now at last, being turned forty, to my
own honour, to that of learning, and to that of
the present age, arrived at the dignity of being a
householder! About seven months ago I got a
house of my own, and completed a regular family,
consisting of a head — myself — and two inferior
members, a maid and a cat. My sister has just
joined me, and keeps me company. With frugality,
I can reach, I find, cleanliness, warmth, light,
plenty, and contentment”

In the following year he succeeded Ruddiman
as librarian to the Faculty of Advocates.

On die opposite side of this small dark court is
a more ancient house, having a curious wainscoted
doom, the oiling, walls, and every panel of which

are elaborately decorated in Nome’s style of art*
and therein abode Sir John Smith of Groat Hall
(already mentioned), Provost of Edinburgh, and
whose name was long borne by the alley. He
was one of the commissioners chosen, in 1650,
to convey the loyal assurances of the realm to
Charles II. and Breda, and to have the Covenant
duly subscribed by him.

In the inner part of Riddell’s Close stands the
house of Bailie John Macmorran, whose tragic
death made a great stir at its time, threw the city
into painful excitement, and tarnished the reputa-
tion of the famous old High School. The conduct
of the scholars there had been bad and turbulent
for some years, but it reached a climax on the
15th of September, 1595. On a week’s holiday
being refused, the boys were so exasperated, being
chiefly “ gentilmane’s baimes,” that they formed
a compact for vengeance in the true spirit of the
age; and, armed with swords and pistols, took
possession at midnight of the ancient school in the
Blackfriars Gardens, and declining to admit the
masters or any one else, made preparation to stand
a siege, setting all authority at defiance.

The doors were not only shut but barricaded and
strongly guarded within ; all attempts to storm the
boy-garrison proved impracticable, and all efforts
at reconciliation were unavailing. The Town
Council lost patience, and sent Bailie John
Macmorran, one of the wealthiest merchants in
the city (though he had begun life as a servant to
the Regent Morton), with a posse of city officers,
to enforce the peace. On their appearance in the
school-yard the boys became simply outrageous,
and mocked them as <s buttery carles,” daring any
one to approach at his peril. “ To the point likely
to be first attacked,” says Steven, in his history of
the school, “ they were observed to throng in a
highly excited state, and each seemed to vie with
his fellow in threatening instant death to the man
who should forcibly attempt to displace them.
William Sinclair, son of the Chancellor of Caithness,
had taken a conspicuous share in this barring out,
and he now appeared foremost, encouraging his
confederates,” and stood at a window overlooking
one of the entrances which the Bailie ordered the
officers to force, by using a long beam as a battering
ram, and he had nearly accomplished, his perilous
purpose, when a ball in the forehead from Sinclairs
pistol slew him on the spot, and he fell on his
back.

Panic-stricken, the boys surrendered. Some
effected their escape, and others, including Sinclair
and the sons of Murray of Springiedale, and Pringle
of Whitebank, were thrown into prison. Maorior-

jjttle'i Close.}

jan’s family were too rich to be bribed, and
clamoured that they would have blood for blood
On the other hand, “friends threatened death to
jjl the people of Edinburgh if they did the child
any harm, saying they were not wise who meddled
irith scholars, especially gentlemen's sons ,* and Lord
Sinclair, as chief of the family to which the young
.culprit belonged, moved boldly in his behalf, and
procured the intercession of King James with the
magistrates, and in the end all the accused got
free, including the slayer of the Bailie, who lived to
become Sir William Sinclair of Mey, in 1631, and
the husband of Catherine Ross, of Balnagowan,
and from them the present Earls, of Caithness are
descended.

When the brother of the Queen Consort, the
Duke of Holstein, visited Edinburgh in March,
1543, and as Moyses tells us, “was received and
welcomed very gladly by Her Majesty, and used
Very way like a prince,” after sundry entertain-
ments at Holyrood, Ravensheugh, and elsewhere,
a grand banquet was given him in the house of
the late Bailie Micmorran by the city of Edin-
burgh. The King and Queen were present, “ with
great solemnity and merriness,” according to Birrel.
On the 3rd of June the Duke embarked at Leith,
under a salute of sixty pieces of cannon from the
bulwarks, and departed with his gifts, to wit — 1,000
five-pound pieces and 1,000 crowns, a hat and
string valued at 12,000 pounds (Scots?), and many
rich chains and jewels.

The Bailie’s initials, I. M., are on the pediments
that ornament his house, which after passing
through several generations of his surname, be-
came the residence of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik.
“By him,” says Wilson, “it was sold to Sir
Roderick Mackenzie, of Preston Hall, appointed
a senator of the College of Justice in 1702, who
resided m the upper part of the house at the same
time that Sir John Mackenzie Lord Royston, third
son of the celebrated Earl of Cromarty, one of the
wittiest and most gifted men of his time, occupied
the low flat Here, in all probability, his witty !
*nd eccentric daughter Anne was born and brought j
U P- This lady, who married Sir William Dick of j
Brestonfield, carried her humorous pranks to an |
excess scarcely conceivable in our decorous days; j

m

sallying out occasionally in search of adventures,
like some of the maids of honour of Charles It's
Court, dressed in male attire, with her maid for a
squire. She seems to have possessed more wit
than discretion.” Riddell’s Close was of old an
eminently aristocratic quarter.

Lower down the street Fisher’s Close adjoined
it, and therein stood, till 1835, the residence of the
ducal house of Buccleuch, which was demolished
in that year to make way for Victoria Terrace. On
the east side of an open court, beyond the Roman
Eagle Hall— a beautkul specimen of an ancient
saloon — stood the mansion of William Little of
Craigmillar (bearing the da^e 15 7$), whose brother
Clement was the founder of the university library,
for in 1580, when commissary of the city, he be-
queathed “ to Edinburgh and the Kirk of God,”
all his books, 300 volumes in number., These
were chiefly theological works, and were transferred
by the town council to the university. Clement
Little was not without having a share in the
troubles of those days, and on the 28th of April,
1572, with others, he was proclaimed at the market
cross, and deprived of his office, for rebellion against
Queen Mary ; but the proclamation failed to be put
in force. His son was Provost of the city in 1591.
Clement and William Little were buried in the
Greyfriars’ churchyard, where a great-grandson of
the latter erected a tomb to their memory in 1683.*
Little’s Close appears as Lord Cullen’s in Edgar’s
map of 1742, so there had also resided that famous
lawyer and judge, Sir Francis Grant of Cullen, who
joined the Revolution party in 1688, who distin-
guished himself in the Convention of 1689 by his
speech in favour of conferring the crown of Scotland
on William and Mary of Orange, and thus swayed
the destinies of the nation. He was raised to the
bench in 1709. His friend Wodrow has recorded
the closing scene of his active life in this old alley,
on the 1 6th of March, 1726. “Brother,” said the
old revolutionist, to one who informed him that
his illness was mortal, “you have brought me the
best news ever I heard ! " 14 And,” adds old Robert
Wodrow, “ that day when he died was without a
cloud . "

* MoMcith't “ Theatre of Mortality.” Edfo., 1704.

FISHER’S AND LITTLE’S CLOSES.

xia

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Brodfo’i do*.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LAWNMARKET {continued).

XW Stay of Deacon Brodie— HU Career of Guilt— Hanged on hii own Gibbet— Mauchine’i Closer Robert Gourlay's Home and th e "*Vr
Old Homes therein— The Bank of Scotland, 1695— Anamination of Sir George Lockhart— Taken Red Hand— Punishment of Chiesly.

From such a character as Sir Francis Grant of William Brodie, Deacon of the Wrights and
Cullen, a single-minded and upright man, the Masons of Edinburgh, was the son of Convener
transition is great indeed to the occupant who Francis Brodie, who had an extensive business as
gave his name to the next close — a name it still a cabinet maker in the Lawnmarket; and in 1781

PLAN OP XDINBUROH, FROM TH* CASTL* TO ST. GILES’S. {From Gonbn o/RoikUmny't Map.)

% The High Street from the Cattle ; to, The Weighhome ; ij. Hone Market Street ; 16, Straight (or West) Bow ; 34, Cunrer's Close;
35, Liberty's Wyod ; 36. Footer's Wynd ; 4 The Kirk in the Castle HilL

retains— a notorious character, who had a kind of the former was elected a Deacon Councillor of the
dual existence, for he stood high in repute as a city. He had unfortunately imbibed a taste for
pious, wealthy, and substantial citizen, until the gambling, and became expert in making that taste
daring robbery of the Excise Office in 1788 brought a source of revenue; thus he did not scruple to
to light a long-continued system of secret house- have recourse to loaded dice. It became a ruling
breaking and of suspected murder, unsurpassed in passion with him, and he was in the habit of re-
the annals of cunning and audacity. sorting almost nightly to a low gambling dub, Kept

Brodtfs CUm.)

DEACON BRODIE.

by a man named Clark, in the Fleshmarket Close.
He had the tact and art to keep his secret profligacy
unknown, and was so successful in blinding his
fellow-citizens that he continued a highly reputable
member of the Town Council until within a short
period of the crime for which he was executed,
and, according to “Kay's Portraits,” it is a singular
fact, that little more than a month previously he

there were committed a series ot startling ft**
beries, and no clue could be had to the perpetcatois.
Houses and shops were entered, and articles of
value vanished as if by magic. In one a

lady was unable to go to church from indisposition*,
and was at home alone, when a man entered with
crape over his face, and taking her keys, opened
her bureau and took away her money, while tjie re-

BAILIK MACMOULAN’S HOUSE.

^t as a Juryman in a criminal case in that very
court where he himself soon after received sentence
of death.

For years he had been secretly licentious and
dissipated, hut it was not until 1786 that he
began an actual career of infamous crime, with
his fellow-culprit, George Smith, a native of Berk-
shire, and two others, named Brown and Ainslie.
He was in easy circumstances, with a flourishing
business, and Jib conduct in becoming a leader of
miscreants seems unaccountable, yet so it was. In
around the city during the winter 0^1787

mained panic-stricken; but as he retired she thought,
“surely that was Deacon Brodie !” But the idea
seemed so utterly inconceivable, that she preserved
silence on the subject till subsequent events
transpired. As these mysterious outrage? condoned,
all Edinburgh became at last tlanned^uid in all of
them Brodie was either actively or passively con-
cerned, till he conceived the — to him— fitfal idea
of robbing the Excise office in Chessers Coast, an
undertaking wholly planned by himseK He visited
the Office openly with a friend, studied the details
of the cashiers loom, and observing die kef of die

«4

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH

[Brodk’s Oom.

outer door hanging from a nail, contrived to take
an impression of it with putty, made a model there-
from, and tried it on the lock by way of experiment,
but went no farther then.

On the 5th of March, Brodie, Smith, Ainslie,
and Brown, met in the evening about eight to make
die grand attempt. The Deacon was attired in
black, with a brace of pistols ; he had with him
several keys and a double picklock. He seemed
in the wildest spirits, and as they set forth he sang
the well-known ditty from the “ Beggar’s Opera”—

“ Let us take the road,

Hark ! I hear the sound of coaches!

The hour of attack
approaches ;

To your arms brave
boys, and load.

“See the ball I hold;

Let chemists toil
like asses —

Our fire their fire
surpasses,

And turns our lead to
gold!”

The office was
shut at night, but
no watchman came
till ten. Ainslie
kept watch in
Chessel’s Court,

Brodie inside the
outer door, when
he opened it,
while Smith and
Brown entered the
cashier’s room. All
save the first car-
ried pistols, and
Brodie had a
whistle by which he was to sound an alarm if
necessary. In forcing the second or inner door,
Brown and Smith had to use a crowbar, and the
coulter of a plough which they had previously stolen
served the purpose. Their faces were craped ; they
had with them a dark lantern, and burst open
eveiy desk and press in the room. While thus
engaged, Mr. James Bonar, the deputy-solicitor,
returned unexpectedly to the office at half-past
eight, and detection seemed imminent indeed !
“ The outer door he found shut, and on opening it
a man in black (Brodie) hurriedly passed him, a
circumstance to which, not having the slightest
suspicion, he paid no attention. He went to his
room up-stairs, where he remained only a few
minutes, and then returned, shutting the outer
door behind him. Perceiving this, Ainslie became

alarmed, gave a signal and retreated. Smith antf
Brown did not observe the call, but thinking
themselves in danger when they heard Mr. Bonar
coming down-stairs, they cocked their pistols, de-
termined not to be taken.”

Eventually they got clear off with their booty,
which proved to be only sixteen pounds odd, when
they had expected thousands ! They all separated
— Brown and Ainslie betook themselves to the New
Town, Brodie hurried home to the Lawnmarket,
changed his dress, and proceeded to the house of
his mistress, Jean Watt, in Liberton’s Wynd, and
on an evening soon after the miserable spoil

was divided in
equal proportions.
By this time the
town was alarmed,
and the police on
the alert Browr
(alias Humphry
Moore), who
proved the greatest
villain of the
whole, was at that
time under sen-
tence of transpor-
tation for some
crime committed
in his native
country, England,
and having seen
an advertisement
offeringreward and
pardon to any per-
son who should
discover a recent
robbery at the
shop of Inglis and
Horner, one of the many transactions in which
Brodie had been engaged of late with Smith and
others, he resolved to' turn king’s evidence, and
on the very evening he had secured his share of
the late transaction he went to the Procurator
Fiscal, and gave information, but omitted to men-
tion the name of Brodie, from whom he expected
to procure money for secrecy. He conducted
the police to the base of the Craigs, where they
found concealed under a large stone a great num-
ber of keys intended for future operations in all
directions. In consequence of this, Ainslie^ Smith
and his wife and servant, were all arrested. Then
Brodie fled, and Brown revealed the whole affair.

• Mr. Williamson, king’s messenger for Scotland,
traced the Deacon from point to point tfll he reached
Dover, where after an eighteen days' pursuit, he

ROOM IN BAILIE MACMORRAN’S HOUSE.

Sradte'fCtaJ

THE EXECUTION.

disappeared; but by a sort of fatuity, often evinced
by persons similarly situated, he gave clues to his
own discovery. He remained in London till the
23rd of March. He took his passage on board the
Leith smack Endeavour for that port, disguised as
an old man in bad health, and under the name of
John Dixon ; but on getting out of the Thames,
according to some previous arrangement, he was
landed at Flushing, and from thence reached
Ostfend. On board the smack he was rash enough
to give* in charge of a Mr. Geddes letters addressed
to three persons in Edinburgh, one of whom was
his favourite mistress in Cant’s Close. Geddes,
full of suspicion, on reaching Leith gave the docu-
ments to the authorities. Mr. Williamson was once
more on his track, and discovered him in Amster-
dam, through the treachery of an Irishman named
Daly, when he was on the
eve of his departure for
America; and on the 27th
of August, 17 88, he was
arraigned with Smith in
the High Court of Jus-
ticiary, when he had as
co'mwcl the Hon. Henry
Erskine, known then as
“ Plead for all, or the
poor man’s lawyer,” and
two other advocates of
eminence, who made an
attempt to prove an alibi
on the part of Brodie,
by means of Jean Watt
and her servant, but
the jury, with one voice, found both guilty, and
they were sentenced to be hanged at the west
end of the Luckenbooths on the 1st October, 1788.
Smith was deeply affected; Brodie cool, determined,
and indifferent His self-possession never forsook
him, and he spoke of his approaching end with
levity, as “a leap in the dark,” and betrayed emo-
tion only when he was visited, for the last time, by
his daughter Cecil, a pretty child of ten years of
age. He came on the scaffold in a full suit of
black, with his hair dressed and powdered. Smith
was attired in white linen, trimmed with black.
“Having put on white night-caps,” says a print
of the time, 11 Brodie pointed to Smith to ascend
the steps that led to the drop, and in an easy man-
ner, clapping him on the shoulder, said, * George
Smith, you are first in hand.* Upon this Smith,
whose behaviour was highly penitent and resigned,
*k>wly ascended die steps, followed by Brodie, who
mounted with briskness and agility, and examined
*he dreadful apparatus with attention, p a r ticu l a rl y

9:

the halter destined for himself;” and well he
do so with terrible interest, as he was to be the
first to know the excellence of an improvement he
had formerly made on that identical gibbet— the
substitution of what is called the drop, for the
ancient practice of the double ladder. The ropes
proving too short, Brodie stepped down to the
platform and entered into easy conversation with
his friends.

This occurred no less than three times, while
the great bell of St Giles’s was tolling slowly, and
the crowd of spectators was vast Brodiq died
without either confessing or denying his guilt ; but
the conduct and bearing Smith were very different
In consequence of the firmness and levity of the
former, a curious story became quickly current, to
the effect that in the Tolbooth he had been visited
by Dr. Pierre Degiaver,
a French quack, who
undertook to restore him
to life after he had hung
the usual time, and that,
on the day before the exe-
cution, he had marked
the arms and temples of
Brodie, to indicate where
he would apply the lancet
Moreover, it was said
that having to lengthen
the rope thrice proved
that they had bargained
secretly with the execu-
tioner for a short fall.
When cut i)wn the
body was instantly given to two of his own
workmen, who placed it on a cart, alud idrove at
a furious rate round the back of the Castle, with
the idea that the rough jolting might produce
resuscitation ! It was then taken to one of his
workshops in the Lawnmarket, where Degram
was in attendance ; but all attempts at bleeding
failed; the Deacon was gone, and nothing remained
but to lay him where he now lies, in the north-east
comer of the Chapel-of-ease burying-ground. His
dark lantern and sets of false keys, presented by.the
Clerk of Justiciary to the Society of Antiquaries, are
still preserved in the city.

He had at one time been Deacon Convener
or chief of all the trades in the qty, an office of
the highest respectability. His boose in Biodic's
Close is still to be found in nearly its original stale;
the first door op a turnpike stair ; and this door,
remarkable for its elaborate workmanship is said
to have been die work of his ingenious hand. The
apartments are all decorated ; and the principal one,

LANTERN AND KEYS OF DEACON BRODIE.
(From the Scottish Antiquarian Must urn.)

ir« OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Maudrfnrt cion.

which it of great height, contains a large painting
over the stone fireplace of the Adoration of the
Wise Men.

A few steps from this was the old Bank Close
(so-called from the Bank of Scotland having
been in it), a blind alley, composed wholly
of solid, handsome, and massive houses, some
of which were of great antiquity, and of old
nailed Hope’s Close, from the celebrated Sir
Thomas Hope, King's Advocate in the time
of Charles I., prior to whom it had borne the
name of Mauchine's Close, about the year 1511.

I had an audience of his Majesty ; with him them
' also came another ambassador from England
named Mr. Davidson, who got an audience also
that same day in the king's chamber of presence.”
This was probably a kinsman of De la Motte,
the French ambassador, who was slain at Flodden.
He left Edinburgh on the 10th of February.

Herein resided Sir William Drury during the siege
of the Castle in 1573, and thither, on its surrender,
was brought its gallant defender before death, with
his brother Sir James Kirkaldy and others; and it
was here that in later years the great Argyle is said to

- Here, on the site of
the present Melbourne
Place, stood a famous old
mansion, almost unique
even in Edinburgh,
named Robert Gouriay’s
House, with the legend,
above its door, “0 Lord
in the is al my traist
1 569"; and it is somewhat
singular that the owner
of this house was a man
neither of rank nor of
wealth, but simply a mes-
senger-at-arms belonging
to the Abbey of Holyrood,
an office bestowed upon
him by the Commen-
dator, Adam Bothwell,
Bishop of Orkney. In
1574 Robert Gourlay
was an elder of the kirk,
and in that year had
to do his public penance
therein “for transporting
wheat out of the countries
In 1581, when the Re-
gent Morton was about to

have passed his last hours
in peaceful sleep before
his execution. So Robert
Gourlay's old house had
a terrible history. By
this time the house had
passed into the posses-
sion of Sir Thomas Hope.
Hence it has been con-
jectured that Argyle'slast
sleep took place in the
Laigh Council Room,
whither, Wodrow says, he
was brought before execu-
tion.

John Gourlay, son of
Robert, erected a house
at the foot of this an-
cient close. It bore the
date 1588, with the motto,
Spes altera vita . Herein
was the Bank of Scotland
first established in 1695,
and there its business
was conducted till 1805,
when it was removed to
their new office, that stu-
pendous edifice at the

suffer death, he was placed in Gouriay’s house head of the entrance to' the Earthen Mound. Lat-
for two days under a guard ; and there it was terly it was used as the University printing-office ;
that those remarkable conferences took place and therein, so lately as 1824, was in use, as a proof
between him and certain cleigymen, in which, press, the identical old wooden press which accom-
while protesting his innocence of the murder of panied the Highland army, in 1745, for die publi-
Darnley, he admitted his foreknowledge of it cation of gazettes sod manifestoes.

Among many popular errors, is one that he in- Robert Gouriay’s house passed from the possession

vented the 44 maiden” by which he suffered ; for it of Sir Thomas Hope and Lord Abenichill into that
is now known to have been the common Scottish of Sir George Lockhart (the great legal and political
guillotine, since Thomas Scott was beheaded by it rival of Sir George Mackenzie), Lord President of
on the 3rd of April, 1566. the Session in 1685, “d doomed to fall a victim to

On the 7th of January, 158a, Moyses tells us in private revenge. Chiesly of Dairy, an unsuccess-
his Memoirs, 41 them came a French ambassador ful litigant, enraged at the president for assigning
through England, named La Motte (Fenelon), he a small aliment of £9$ out of his estater-afine one
was lodged in Gouriay’s house near Talbooth, and south-westward of die city— to his wife, from whom

Hgudiiaifo CtaeJ

LOCKHART ASSASSINATED.

t .

**7

we must suppose he was separated, swore to have
vengeance. He was perhaps not quite sane ; but
anyway, he was a man of violent and ungovernable
passions. Six months before the event we are
about to relate he told Sir James Stewart, an advo-
cate when in London, that he was “ determined
to go to Scotland before Candlemas and kill the
president I" “The very imagination of such a
thing/’ said Sir James, “is a sin before God.”

bed with illness, but sprang up on hearing the
pistol-shot ; and on learning what had occurred,
rushed forth in her night-dress and assisted to
convey in the victim, who was laid on two chairs,
and instantly expired. The ball had passed out
at the left breast. Chiesly was instantly seized.
“ I am not wont to do things by halves," said he,
grimly and boastfully ; “ and now I have taught the
president how to do justice ! ” He was put to the

THE FIRST INTERVIEW IN 1 786 : DEACON BRODIE AND GEORGE SMITH. {a/Ut Kmp.)

“Leave God and me alone,” was the fierce response,
“ we have many things to reckon betwixt us, and we
will reckon this too ! " The Lord President was
warned of his open threats, but unfortunately took
no heed of them. On Easter Sunday, the 31st of
March, 1689, the assassin loaded his pistols, and
went to the dioir of St Giles’s church, from whence
he dogged him home to the Old Bank Dose, and
though accompanied by Lord Castlehill and Mr.
Daniel Lockhart, shot, him in the back just as he
was about to enter his house— the old one whose
history we have traced. Lady Lockhart — aunt of
<he fiunons Duke of Wharton— was confined to her

torture to discover if he had any accomplices; and as
he had been taken red hand, he was on Monday
sentenced to death by Sir Magnus Price, Provost
of the city, without much formality, according to
Father Hay, and on a hurdle he was dragged to the
Cron, where his right hand was struck off when alive;
then he was hanged in chains at Pruniiheugh, says
another account; between the city and Leith at the
Gallowlee, according to a third, with the pistol tied
to his neck. His right hand was nailed on the
West Port The manor bouse of Dairy, latterly
the property of Kirkpatrick, of Affiriand, was after
this alleged to be haunted, and no acrwm t her#

US

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Godot*, do*.

would wit are, alter dark, alone into the back writes of a skeleton, found a century after, “ when
Kitchen, as it tradition existed that his body — removing the hearth-stone of a cottage in Dairy
which his relations had unchained and carried o$ Park, with the remains of a pistol near the situation
word in hand, under doud of night— was buried of the neck. No doubt was entertained that these
womewhere near that apartment “ On repairing were the remains of Chiesly, huddled into this

SIS. GEORGE LOCKHART OF CARNWATH.
{From the Portrait m the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.)

the garden-wall at a later period,” says Dr. Wilson, place of concealment, probably in the course of the
4 ‘ an old stone seat* which stood in a recess of the night in which they had been abstracted from the
wall had to be removed, and underneath was gallows.” This pistol is still preserved,
found a skeleton entire, except the bones of the In this close “ the great house pertaining to
light hand — without^ doubt the remains of the the Earl of Eglintoun,” with its coach-house and
.assassin, that had secretly been brought thither stables, is advertised foi; sale in the Evening Courant
-from the Gallowlee." But Dr. Chambers also of April, 1735.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LAWNMARKET {concluded).

‘Oodbcrfi d o— - T he Town House of the Abbot of Guabuakonaoth— Tanaant'* House— Massioa of the Haya— Ubartoa's Wjed-Jch"*
Dowirt Tam-Buni and Hie Songs-Tbe Place of Eaaarto— Birthplace of “the Mas of FeeHaf H -The Minor Oah-Pevreste^e
Wyad— The Heather Sucks in the Houaes-Petar WUfiapna-»aith , i Wyad-HaMu of the Lmauihet Woolku TWai-^Uw
uaihet Oaaettas M — Melbourne Place— The Couaty Hall— The Sgoet and Advocated Libraries.

Below the scene of this tragedy opened Gosford's been of considerable size, and from the mass of
dose (in the direct line of the King’s Bridge), sculptured fragments, all beautiful Gothic carvings,
wherein lor ages stood a highly-decorated edifice, found in the later houses of the dose, most have
fodonging to die Augustinian abbey of Cambus- been a considerable feature in the dty. “The
Kenneth, near Stirling. It would seem to have building was in all likelihood,” we are told, “dm

DOWIE’S TAVERN.

Jibcrton'i Wynd.1

town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel
attached to it, and may serve to remind us how
little idea we can form of the beauty of the
Scottish capital before the Reformation, adorned
as it was with so many churches and conventual
buildings, the very sites of which are now unknown.
Over the doorway of an ancient stone land in Gos-
ford’s Close, which stood immediately east of the Old
Bank Close, there existed a curious sculptured
lintel containing a representation of the crucifixion,
and whith may with every probability be regarded
as another relic of the abbot’s house that once
occupied its site.”

This lintel is still preserved, and the house
which it adorned belonged to Mungo Tennant, a
wealthy citizen, whose seal is appended to a rever-
sion of the half of the lands of Leny, in 1540. It
also bears his arms, with the then common legend
—Soli. Deo. Honor, et . Gloria.

In the lower storey of this house was a strongly-
arched cellar, in the floor of which was a concealed
trap-door, admitting to another lower down, hewn
out of the living rock. Tradition averred it was a
chamber for torture, but it has more shrewdly been
supfcfced to have been connected with the smugglers,
to whom the North Loch afforded by boat such
facilities for evading the duties at the city gates,
and running in wines and brandies. This vault is
believed to be still remaining untouched benCath
the central roadway of the new bridge. On the
first floor of this mansion the fifth Earl of Loudon,
a gallant general officer, and his daughter, Lady
Flora (latterly countess in her own right) afterwards
Marchioness of Hastings, resided when in town.
Here, too, was the mansion of Hume Rigg of
Morton, who died in it in 1788. It is thus de-
scribed in a note to Kay’s works : — “ The dining and
drawing-rooms were spacious; indeed, more so
than those of any private modem house we have
seen. The lobbies were all variegated marble, and
a splendid mahogany staircase led to the upper
storey. There was a large green behind, with a
statue in the middle, and a summer-house at the
bottom ; but so confined was the entry to this
elegant mansion that it was impossible to get even
a sedan chair near to the door.” On the 20th
Januaiy, 1773, at four A.M., there was a tempest,
says a print of the time, 44 and a stack of chimneys
on an old house at the foot of Gosford’s Close,
Possessed by Hugh Mossman, writer, was blown
down, and breaking through the roof in that part
of the house wheie he and his spouse lay, they
both perished in the ruins. .... In the
storey below, Miss Mally Rigg, sister to Rig g of
ifortan, also perished.”

119

In T 773 the Ladies Catherine and Anne Hay,;
daughters of John Marquis of Tweeddale, lived
there, and in that year their brother George, the
fifth Marquis, resided there too, in the third floor
of the front “ land ” or tenement « Indeed,” says.
Wilson, “ the whole neighbourhood was the fa-
vourite resort of the most fashionable and distin-
guished among the resident citizens, and a perfect
nest of advocates and lords of session.” In the
year 1794 the hall and museum of the Society of
Antiquaries were at the bottom of this ancient
thoroughfare.

Next it was Liberton’s >* r ynd, the avenue of which
is still partially open, ar£, which was removed to
make way for the new bridge and other buildings.
Like many others still extant, or demolished, this
alley, called a wypd as being broader than a
close, had the fronts of its stone mansions so added
to and encumbered by quaint projecting out-shot
Doric gables of timber, that they nearly met over-
head, excluding the narrow strip of sky, and, save
at noon, all trace of sunshine. Yet herein stood
Johnnie Dowie’s tavern, one of the most famous in
the annals of Convivialia, and a view of which, by
Geikie, is preserved by Hone in his 44 Year Book.”
Johnnie Dowie was the sleekest and kindest Of
landlords ; nothing could equal the benignity of
his smile when he brought 44 ben ” a bottle of his
famous old Edinburgh ale to a well-known and
friendly customer. The formality with which he
drew the cork, the air with which he filled the long,
slender glasses, and the regularity with which he
drank the healths of all present in the first, with
his douce civility at withdrawing, were a^Jo Og re-
membered by his many customers as hit ‘•Nor’
Loch trouts and Welsh rabbits,” after hc'kffxi gone
to his last home, in 1817, leaving a fortune to his
son, who was a major in the army. With a laud-
able attachment to the old costume be always wore
a cocked hat, buckles at the knees and shoes, as
well as a cross-handled cane, over which he
stooped in his gait Here, in the space so small
and dark, that even cabmen would avoid it now,
there came, in the habit of the times, Robert Fer-
gusson the poet, David Herd the earliest collector
of Scottish songs, “ antiquarian Paton," and others
forgotten now, but who were men of local note
in their own day as lords of session and l e adin g
advocates. Here David Martin, ^ well-known
portrait painter, instituted a Club, which wan
quaintly named after their host, the "Dowie
College,” and there his far more celebrated
pupil Sir Henry Raeburn often accompanied
him in his earlier yean; and, move than all,
it was die favourite resort of Robert Bums,

‘ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

K AtOi i 'tWynd.

I ■

whflfle he spent many a jovial hour with Willie
Kkol and Allan Masterton. “Three blyther
lads 9 never gladdened the old place; and so
associated did it become with Bums, that, accord-
ing to: a writer in the “Year Book,” “his name
was assumed as its distinguishing and alluring cog-
nomen. Until it was finally closed, it was visited

nightly by many a party of jolly fellows

Few strangers omitted to call in to gaze upon the
4 coffin ’ of the bard — this was a small, dark room,
which would barely accommodate, even by squeez-
ing, half a dozen, but in which Bums used to sit

The moment the clock of St Giles’s struck
midnight not another cork would Johnnie D^wi«
draw. His unvarying reply to a fresh order was,
“Gentlemen, it is past twelve, and time to go
home.” In the same comer where Bums sat
Christopher North has alluded to his own pleasant
meetings with Tom Campbell. A string of eleven
verses in honour of his tavern were circulated
among his customers by Dowie, who openly ascribed
them to Bums. Two of these will suffice, as what
was at least a good imitation of the poet’s
style : —

“ O Dowie’s ale ! thou art the thine

ROBERT GQURLAY’S HOUSE.

Here he composed one or two of his best songs,
and here were preserved to the last the identical
seats and table which had accommodated him,”
In his edition of Scottish songs published in 1829,
five years before the demolition of the tavern,
Chambers notes that in the ale-house was sung that
sweetest of all Bums's love songs : —

14 O, poortith cauld, and restless love,

Ye wreck my peace between ye 5
Yet poortith a' I could forgie.

An 'twere na for my Jeanie.

u Oh, why should fete sic pleasure have,

Life's dearest bonds untwining ?

Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on fortune's shining?”

That gars us crack and gars us sing,
Cast by our cares, our wants a’ fling
Frae us wi’ anger ;

Thou e'en mak’st passion tak the wing,
Or thou wilt hang her.

“ How blest is he wha has a groat,

To spare upon the cheering pot ;

He may look blythe as ony Scot
That e’er was born ;

Gie’s a* the like, but wi’ a coat,

And guide frae scorn.”

“ Now these men are all gone,”
wrote one, who, alas ! has followed
them ; “ their very habits are be-
coming matters of history, while, as
for their evening haunt, the place
which knew it once knows it no
more, the new access to the Lawn-
market, by George IV. bridge,
passing over the area where it
stood.”

Liberton s Wynd is mentioned
so far back as in a charter by
James III., in 1477, and in a more
subsequent time it was the last
permanent place of execution, after
the demolition of the old Tolbooth.
Here at its head have scores of un-
happy wretches looked their last
upon the morning sun — the infamous Burke, whom
we shall meet again, among them. The socket
of the gallows-tree was removed, like many other
objects of greater interest, in 1834.

Before quitting this ancient alley we must not
omit to note that therein, in the house of his father
Dr. Josiah Mackenzie (who died in 1800) was
bom in August, 1745, Henry Mackenzie, author
of the “ Man of Feeling/’ one of the most illus-
trious names connected with polite literature in
Scotland. He was one of the most active members
.of the Mirror Club, which met sometimes at Cleri-
heugh’s in Writers’ Court; sometimes m Somers,
opposite the Guard-house in the High Strep*;
sometimes in Stewart's oyster-house, in rite

ftpgwrt Wynd.1

THE “ MIE.ROR” CLUE

f—

Fieshmarket Dose ; but oftener, perhaps, in Lucky
Dunbar’s, a house which was situated in an alley
that led between Liberton’s Wynd and Forrester’s
Wvnd. This Club commenced its publication of
th e Mirror in January, i7*9» and terminated it in
May 1780 - 11 was a folio sheet » P ublished weekly
at three-halfpence. The Lounger , to which Lord
Craig contributed largely, was commenced, by the
staff of the Mirror, on the 6th of February, 1785,
and continued weekly till the 6th of January, 1787.

ctr

paid to their morals, behaviour, and every brand*
of education.”

In this quarter Turk’s Close, Carthrae’s, For-
rester’s, and Beith’s Wynds, all stood on the slope
between Liberton’s Wynd and St Giles’s Church ;
but every stone of these had been swept away many
years before the great breach made by the new
bridge was projected. Forrester’s Wynd occurs so
often in local annals that it must have been a place
of some consideration.

Among the members of this literary Club were Mr.
Alexander Abercrombie, afterwards Lord Aber-
crombie ; Lord Bannatyne; Mr. George Home,
Clerk of Session ; Gordon of Newhall ; and a Mr.
George Ogilvie ; among their correspondents were
Lord Hailes, Mr. Baron Hume, Dr. Beattie, and
many other eminent literary men of the time ; but
°f the 101 papers of the Lounger , fifty-seven are
the production of Henry Mackenzie, including his
general review of Burns’s poems, already referred to.

In Liberton’s Wynd, we find from die Edinburgh
Advertiser of 1783, that the Misses Preston,
daughters of the late minister of M a rk inch, had a
boa rding school for young ladies, whose parents
“may d epend that die greatest attention will be

« The Diurnal of Occurrcnts” record*, that in
*66, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin, Dean of
testalrig, and Lord President of the College of
ustice, died in Forrester's Wynd, in the house of
ames Mossman, probably the same man who was a
oldsmith in Edinburgh at that time, and whose
suher, also James Mossman, endw ed l wft the
iresent four arches the aamn at Scodairf , by
irder of James V., when Henry VIII. dosed
he crown of England. In consequence eftbe
touses being set on fire by the Castle gune under
[j dddr i in 157*, it *** ordered that nil -the
h atched houses between Bei&’s Wynd and St-
iles’s should be unroofed, and Art 4 A* «
feather should be curried away fiem a

t>LD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

[Fmata'a WynS,

nil

and burned, and "that ilk man in Edinburgh have
Us lames (vents) full of waiter in the nycht, under
painofdmdl*’ (“ Diurnal”) This gives us a graphic
idea of the city in the sixteenth century, and of the
High Street in particular, “with the majority of the
buildings on either side covered with thatch, en-
cumbered by piles of heather and other fuel
accumulated before each door for the use of the
inhabitants, and from amid these, we may add
the stately ecclesiastical edifices, and the substan-
tial mansions of the nobility, towering with all the
more imposing effect, in contrast to their homely
' neighbourhood.”

Concerning these heather stacks we have the
following episode in “Moyses’ Memoirs — “On the
and December, 1584, a baiter’s boy called Robert
Henderson (no doubt by the instigation of Satan)
desperately put some powder and a candle to his
father’s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite
the Tron, and burnt the same with Us father’s
house, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole
town, for which, being apprehended most mar-
vellously, after his escaping out of town, he was next
day burnt quick at the cross of Edinburgh as an
example.” ’

There was still extant in 1850 a small fragment
of Forrester’s Wynd, a beaded doorway in a ruined
wall, with the legend above it —

"O.F. Our Inheritance, 1623.”

“In all the old houses in Edinburgh,” says
Amot, “it is remarkable that the superstition of
the time had guarded each with certain cabalistic
characters or talismans engraved upon its front.
These were generally composed of some texts of
Scripture, of the yiame of God, or perhaps an
emblematical representation of the crucifixion.”

Forrester’s Wynd probably took its name from
Sir Adam Forrester of Corstorphine, who was twice
chief magistrate of the city in the 14th century.

After the “Jenny Geddes” riot in St. Giles’s,
Guthrie, in his “ Memoirs,” tells us of a mob, con-
sisting of some hundreds of women, whose place
of rendezvous in 1637 was Forrester's Wynd, and
who attacked Sydeserf, Bishop of Galloway, when
on Us way to the Privy Council, accompanied by
Francis Stewart, son of the Earl of Bothwell,
“with such violence, that probably he had been
tom in pieces, if it had not been that the said
Francis, with the help of two pretty men that
attended him, rescued him out of their barbarous
hands, and hurled him in at the door, holding back
the pursuers until those that were within shut the
. door. Thereafter, the Provost and Bailies being
assemb led in their council, those women beleaguered

them, and threatened to bum the house about their
ears, unless they did presently nominate two com.
missioners for the town," &c. Their cries were :

“ God defend all those who will defend God’s cause!
God confound the service-book and all maintained
thereof!"

From advertisements, it would appear that a
character who made some noise in his time, Peter
Williamson, “ from the other world,” as he called
himself, had a printer’s shop at the head of this
wynd in 1772. The victim of a system of kidnap-
ping encouraged by the magistrates of Aberdeen,
he had been carried off in his boyhood to America,
and after almost unheard-of perils and adventures,
related in his autobiography, published in 1758, he
returned to Scotland, and obtained some small
damages from the then magistrates of his native
city, and settled in Edinburgh as a printer and
publisher. In 1776 he started The Scots Spy , pub-
lished every Friday, of which copies are now
extremely rare. He had the merit of establishing
the first penny post in Edinburgh, and also pub-
lished a “ Directory,” from his new shop in the
Luckenbooths, in 1784. He would appear for
these services to have received a small pension
from Government when it assumed his institution
of the penny post. He died in January, 1799.

The other venerable alley referred to, Beith’s
Wynd, when greatly dilapidated by time, was nearly
destroyed by two fires, which occurred in 1786 and
1788. The former, on the 12th December, broke
out near Henderson’s stairs, and raged with great
violence for many hours, but by the assistance of
the Town Guard and others it was suppressed, yet
not before many families were burnt out. The
Parliament House and the Advocates' Library
were both in imminent peril, and the danger ap-
peared so great, that the Court of Session did not
sit that day, and preparations were made for the
speedy removal of all records. At the head of
Beith’s Wynd, in 1745' dwelt Andrew Maclure, a
writing-master, one of that corps of civic volunteers
who marched to oppose the Highlanders, but
which mysteriously melted away ere it left the West
Port It was noted of the gallant Andrew, that
having made up his mind to die, he had affixed
a sheet of paper to his breast, whereon was written,
in large text-hand, “This is the body of Andrew
Maclure ; let it be decently interred,” a notice that
was long a source of joke among the Jacobite
wits.

With this wynd, our account of the alleys in
connection with die Lawnmarket ends. We have
elsewhere referred to the once well-known Club
formed by the dwellers in the latter, chiefly woollen

The Tolbooth.]

THE SIGNET

an6

ADVOCATES* LIBRARIES.

**3

trtders. They have been described as being “a
<liam-drinking, news-mongering, facetious set of
citizens, who met every mom about seven o’clock,
and after proceeding to the post-office to ascertain
the news (when the mail arrived), generally ad-
journed to a public-house and refreshed themselves
tfith a libation of brandy.” Unfounded articles of
intelligence that were spread abroad in those days
were usually named “ Lawnmarket Gazettes,” in
allusion to their roguish or waggish originators.

At <aQ periods the Lawnmarket was a residence
for men of note, and the frequent residence of
English and other foreign ambassadors; and so
long as Edinburgh continued to be the seat of the
Parliament, its vicinity to the House made it a
favourite and convenient resort for the members
of the Estates.

On the ground between Robert Gourlay’s house
and Beith’s Wynd we now find some of those por-
tions of the new city which have been engrafted on
the old. In Melbourne Place, at the north end of
George IV. Bridge, are situated many important
offices, such as, amongst others, those of the Royal
Medical Society, and the Chamber of Commerce
and Manufactures, built in an undefined style of
architecture, new to Edinburgh. Opposite, with
its back to the bridge, where a part of the line of
Liberton’s Wynd exists, is built the County Hall,
presenting fronts to the Lawnmarket and to Sl
G iles's. The last of these possesses no common
beauty, as it has a very lofty portico of finely-fluted
columns, overshadowing a flight of steps leading to
the main entrance, which is modelled after the
choragic monument of Thrasyllus, while the ground
plan and style of ornament is an imitation of the
Temple of Erechtheium at Athens. It was erected
in 1817, and contains several spacious and lofty
court-rooms, with apartments for the Sheriff and
other functionaries employed in the business of the
county. The hall contains a fine statue of Lord
Chief Baron Dundas, by Chantrey.

Adjoining it and stretching eastward is the
of the Writers to the Signet It is of Grerianastefc**
tecture, and possesses two long pillared of
beautiful proportions, the upper having Corinthian
columns, and a dome wherein are painted the
Muses. It is 132 feet long by about 40 broad,
and was used by George IV. as a drawing-room,
on the day of the royal banquet in the Parliament
House. Formed by funds drawn solely from con-
tributions by Writers to H.M. Signet, it is under
a body of curators. The library contains more
than 60,000 volume*! and is remarkably rich in
British and Irish history.

Southward of it and ly+fg parallel with it, nearer
the Cowgate, is the Advocates’ Library, two long
halls, with oriel windows on the north side. This
library, one of the five in the United Kingdom en-
titled to a copy of every work printed in it, was
founded by Sir George Mackenzie, Dean of Faculty
in 1682, and contains some 200,000 volumes,
forming the most valuable collection of the kind
in Scotland. The volumes of Scottish poetry alone
exceed 400. Among some thousand MSS. are those
of Wodrow, Sir James Balfour, Sir Robert Sibbald,
and others. In one of the lower compartments
may be seen Greenshield’s statue of Sir Walter
Scott, and the original volume of Waverley ; two
volumes of original letters written by Mary Queen
of Scots and Charles I.; the Confession of Faith
signed by James VI. and the Scottish nobles in
1589-90; a valuable cabinet from the old Scottish
mint in the Cowgate; the pennon borne by
Sir William Keith ai Flodden; and many other
objects of the deepest interest The of

librarian has been held by many distinguished
men of letters ; among them were Thorne's Rud-
diman, in 1702; David Hume, his successor, in
1752 , Adam Ferguson ; and David Irving, LL.D.

A somewhat minor edifice in the vicinity forms
the library of the Solicitors before the Supreme
Court

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TOLBOOTH.

Koaoruls of the Heart ofllidkrthfca, or Old Tolbootb-Sr Walter Scots’* Deeeripboa-Tbe lari?
-Noted Primon— Entries from the Racorde-Lord Buririgh's Acumpa at ~

Naine and of James Hay— The Tatra Guard— The Royal Badttmm

•The ** Refaia Hoed 1
Mob— The Sterile of

Ths genius of Scott has shed a strange halo around
*he memory of the grim and massive Tolbooth
Prison, so mpeh so that the creations of his imagi-
nation, such as Jessie and Effie Deans, take the
Place of real persons of flesh and blood, and such

is the power of genius, that with the name of the
Heart of Midlothian we couple the fierce fiuy of.
the Porteous mob. “Antique in form, gloomy and
haggard in aspect, ill black st a n c hi on ed windows,
opening through its dingy walls like the apertures

tm

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

of a. heme, it *U calculated to impress all beholders
artth a sense nt what was meant in Scottish law
If'Ae MMfer atretris n

wf w*Ww Wrr Iwf P#«

Situated in die very heart of the ancient city, it
stood at the north-west comer of the parish church
of St (Hies, and so close to it as to leave only a
narrow footway between the projecting buttresses,
while its tall and gloomy mass extended so far
into the High Street, as to leave the thoroughfare
at that part only 14 feet- in breadth. “Reuben
Butler,” says Scott, writing ere its demolition had
been decreed, “stood now before the Gothic en-
trance of the ancient prison,
which, as is well known to
all men, rears its front in
the very middle of the High
Street, forming, as it were,
the termination to a huge
pile of buildings called the
Luckenbooths, which, for
some inconceivable reason,
our ancestors had jammed
into the midst of the prin-
cipal street of the town,
leaving for passage a narrow
street on the north and on
the south, into which the
prison opens, a narrow,
crooked lane, winding be-
twixt the high and sombre
walls of the Tolbooth and
the adjacent houses on one
side, and the buttresses and
projections of the old church
upon the other. To give
some gaiety to this sombre
passage (well known by the
name of the Krames), a
number of little booths or
shops, alter the fashion of
cobblers’ stalls, are plastered, as it were, against
the Gothic projections and abutments, so that it
seemed as if the traders had occupied with
nests— bearing about the same proportion to the
building — every buttress and coign of vantage,
as foe martlet did in Macbeth’s castle. Of
later years these booths have degenerated into
mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly
interested in such wares are tempted to linger, en-
chanted by foe rich display of hobby-horses, babies,
and Dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay con-
fusion, yet half scared by foe cross looks of foe
withered pantaloon by whom these wares are
wap co nt ended. But in foe times we write of foe
bmtn, glovers, batten, m er c er s , milliners, and all

who dealt in foe miscellaneous waxes now termed
haberdashers’ goods, were to be found in this narrow
alley.”

By the year 1561 the Tolbooth, or Pretorium
burgi de Edinburgh, as it is named in the early Acts
of the Scottish Parliament, had become ruinous,
and on the 6th of February Queen Mary wrote a
letter to the magistrates, charging the Provost to
take it down at once, and meanwhile to provide
accommodation elsewhere for the Ix>rds of Session.
Since the storm of foe Reformation the Scottish
revenues had been greatly impaired; money
and materials were alike
scarce; hence the magis-
trates were anxious, if pos-
sible, to preserve the old
building ; accordingly a new
one was erected, entirelyapart
from it, adjoining the south-
west comer of St. Giles’s
church, and the eastern por-
tion of the old Tolbooth
bore incontestable evidence
of being the work of an age
long anterior to the date of
Queen Mary’s letter, and the
line of demarcation between
the east and west ends of the
edifice is still apparent in all
views of it The more
ancient portion, which had
on its first floor a large and
deeply-embayed square win-
dow, having rich Gothic
niches on each side, is sup-
posed to have been at one
time the house of the Provost
of St. Giles’s church, or some
such appendage to the lat-
ter, while the prebends and
other members of the' colleges were accommodated
in edifices on the south side of the church, removed
in 1632 to make way for the present Parliament
House. Thus it is supposed to have .been built
about 1466, when James III. erected St Giles’s into
a collegiate church, and the chapter-house thereof
being of sufficient dimensions, would naturally
lead to foe meeting-place of parliaments, though
many were held in Edinburgh long before the
time of James III., especially in the old hall of the
Castle, now degraded into a military hospital.

The first Parliament of James II. was held io
foe latter in 1437 j in 1438 foe second Parliament
was held at Stirling, but in foe November of the
same year another in pntorio kurgi d* Edinburgh*

JOHN DOWIE. (A/UrJCay.)

u

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

<£*., die To&ooth; others were held there in 1449
and 14 $ 9 * In the latter the Scottish word
"ToBmatii* meaning a tax-house, occurs for the
tat time ; “ lienee,” says Wilson, “ a much older,
jt2kd probably larger erection must therefore have
existed on the site of the western portion of the
.Tolbooth, the ruinous state of which led to the
royal command for its demolition in 1561 — not
a century after the date we are disposed to
assign to the oldest portion of the building that
remained till 1817, and which, though decayed and
time-worn, was so far from being ruinous even then,
that it proved a work of great labour to demolish
its solid masonry.” In the “ Diurnal of Occurrents,”
at is recorded that in 1571 “ the tour of the auld
Tolbuyth was tane doun.”

The ornamental north gable of the Tolbooth was
never seen without a human head stuck thereon in
“the good old times.” In 1581 “the prick on the
highest stone” bore the head of the Regent
Morton, in 1650 the head of the gallant Montrose,
till eleven years subsequently it was replaced by that
■of his enemy Argyle.

In 1561 the Tolbooth figures in one of those
tulzies or rows so common in the Edinburgh of
those days ; but in this particular instance we see a
•distinct foreshadowing of the Porteous mob of the
•eighteenth century, by the magistrates forbidding a
“ Robin Hood.” This was the darling May game
of Scotland as well, as England, and, under the
pretence of frolic, gave an unusual degree of licence ;
but the Scottish Cadvinistic clergy, with John Knox
At their head, and backed by the authority of the
magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been
chosen exclusively from that party, found it impos-
sible to control the rage of the populace when
deprived of the privilege of having a Robin Hood,
with the Abbot of Unreason and the Queen of the
May. Thus it .came to pass, that in May, 1561,
when a man in Edinburgh was chosen as “ Robin
Hood and Lprd of Inobedience,” most probably
because, he was a frolicsome, witty, and popular
fellow, and passed through the city with a great
number of followers, noisily, and armed, with a
banner displayed, to the Castle Hill, the magistrates
caught one of his companions, “ a cordiner’s ser-
vant,” named. James GiUon, whom they condemned
to be hanged on the 21st of July.

On that day, as he was to be conveyed to the
gibbet, it was set up with the ladder against it
in die usual fashion, when the craftsmen rushed
into the streets, dad in their armour, with
•pears, axes, and hand-guns. They seised the
Provo* by main force of arms, together with
two B a ltics, David Symmer and Adam Fullarton,

fTh* Tolbooth.

and thrusting them into Alexander Guthrie’s
writing booth, left them there under a guard
The rest marched to the cross, broke the gibbet
to pieces, and beating in the doors of the Tol-
booth with sledge-hammers, under the eyes of
the magistrates, who were warded close by,
they brought forth the prisoner, whom they con-
veyed in triumph down the street to the Nether-
bow Port Finding the latter dosed, they passed
up the street again. By this time the magistrates
had taken shelter in the Tolbooth, from whence
one of them fired a pistol and wounded one of the
mob. “That being done,” says the Diurnal of
Occurrents, “there was naethmg but tak and slay!
that is, the one part shooting forth and casting
stones, the other part shooting hagbuts in again, and
sae the craftsmen’s servants held them (conducted
themselves) continually frae three hours afternoon,
while (till) aucht at even, and never ane man of the
toun steirit to defend their provost and bailies.”

The former, who was Thomas MacCalzean, of
Clifton Hall, contrived to open a communication
with the constable of the Castle, who came with
an armed party to act as umpire ; and through that
officer it was arranged “that the provost and
bailies should discharge all manner of actions
whilk they had against the said crafts-childer in
ony time bygone ; ” and this being done and pro-
claimed, the armed trades peacefully disbanded,
and the magistrates were permitted to leave the
Tolbooth.

In 1579 the sixth Parliament of James VI. met
there. The Estates rode through the streets;
“the crown was borne before his Majesty by
Archibald Earl of Angus, the sceptre by Colin
Earl of Argyle, Chancellor, and the sword of
honour, by Robert Earl of Lennox.” Moyses adds,
when the Parliament was dissolved, twelve days
after, the king again rode thither in state. In
1581 Morton was tried and convicted in the hall
for the murder of Darale^ ; the King’s Advocate
on that occasion was Robert Crichton of Elliock,
father of the “ Admirable Crichton.”

Calderwood records some curious instances of
the king’s imbecility among his fierce and turbulent
courtiers. On January 7th, 1590, when he was
coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth,
where he had been administering justice, two of
his attendants, Lodovick Duke of Lennox (heredi-
tary High Admiral and Great Chamberlain), and
Alexander Lord Home, meeting the Laird of
Logie, with whom they had a quarrel, though he
was valet of the royal chamber; attacked Um
sword in hand, to die alarm of James, who retired
into an adjacent dose ; and six days after, when ha-

A* Tolbooth.]

ITS PRISONERS.

*as sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laird of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly
dragged out one of the most important witnesses,
and carrying him to his castle of Crichton, eleven
miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered
a word.

On the charge of being a “ Papist,” among many
other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the
Countess of Abercom, where her health became
broken by confinement, and the misery of a
prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of
George III., must have been something terrible in
the days of Charles I. In 1621 she obtained a
licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing
to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the
Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint
in various places for three years, she was permitted
to remain in the earl’s house at Paisley, in March
1631, on condition that she “ reset no Jesuits,”
and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000
merks.

Taken seriatim , the records of the Tolbooth
contain volumes of entries made in the following
brief fashion : —

“1662, June 10. — John Kincaid put in ward
by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for
‘pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft un-
warrantably * Liberated on finding caution not to
do so again.

“ — June 10. — Robert Binning for falsehood;
hanged with the false papers about his neck.

44 — Aug. 13. — Robert Reid for murder. His
head struck from his body at the mercat cross.

“ — Dec. 4. — James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhu-
pitt from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the
cheek with the Toun's common mark, and banished
the kingdom, for the crime of double adultery.

14 1663, March 13. — Alexander Kennedy; hanged
for raising false bonds and writts.

44 — March 21. — Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certi-
fying if again troubling the place, the next prison
shall be the Correction House.

July 8. — Katherine Reid; hanged for

theft

44 — July 8. — Sir Archibald Johnston of Warri-
ston; treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed
on the Netherbow.

44 — July 18.— Bessie Brebner; hanged for
murder.

44 — Aug. 25. — The Provost of Kirkcudbright;
banished for keeping his house during a tumult

44 — Oct 5.— William Dodds; beheaded for
minder.’’

And no 00 in grim monotony, till we come to

■-

the last five entries in the old record, -kU . fc
quite incomplete.

1728, Oct 25.— John Gibson; forging &
declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug *«iM
to the Tron, and dismissed.

<4 1 75 I » March 18.— Helen Torrance and Jean
Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child,
eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to
the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when
carried off, and dead on Friday, with an incision in
the belly, but sewn up again.

44 1756, May 4. — Sir Wiliam Dalrymple of C&ms~
land ; for shooting at Capt Hen. Dalrymple* of
Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh^
Liberated on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks,
to answer any complaint.

44 1752, Jan. 10. — Norman Ross; hanged and
hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for*
assassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of
Wedderbum.

”1757, Feb. 4.-— James Rose, Excise Officer at
Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts*
for arrears.”

It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through
clanship, or some other influence, nearly every
criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape.

Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer,
who was one of the commissioners for executing
the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who*
married a daughter of the Earl of Melville about
the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster
who had married a girl to whom he had paid im-
proper addresses, wa& committed to the TcSbooth,.
and sentenced to death ; and of his first attelopt
to escape the following story is tokL He wa*
carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be
conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful
porter, who was to put him on board a vessel
about to sail for the Continent It chanced that
when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter
did so with Lord Burleigh’s head downmott, thus*
it had to sustain the weight of his whole body*
The posture was agony, the way long and rough*
but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual
burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port*'
where an acquaintance asked him ’’whither he
was going?” “To Leith,” was the reply. “Is the
work good enough to afford a glam before going
farther ? n was the next question. The porter sett
it was; and tossed down the trunk with auefo
violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Bar** ,
leigh, who instantly fainted-
Scare d and the p ***— 1 *** t uMt dpffo

die trunk, when its lu HfW f inmate was Jbmnft*
cramped, dou b lc d- op, and icmri m A, m&k

4 ,

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

wlto o d j the City Guard came promptly on the
ipM, and When the prisoner recovered from his
MnMB ht was safe in his old quarters, which did
■rtlfcpld him long, however, as it would appear
iNM die old folio of Douglas Peerage that he
^MMped in his sister's clothes. Yet as Lord Bur-
ttfeh died in 1713, Douglas in this matter seems
to confound him with his son, the Master.

Of all the thousands who must have been prisoners
there, recorded and unrecorded, on every conceiv-

The malt-tax, the dismissal of the Duke of Rot-
burgh from his office as Scottish Secretary of State,
and the imposition of an intolerable taxation, the firs!
result of the Union, and the endeavours of the re-
venue officers to repress smuggling, all embittered
the blood of the people. The latter officials were
either all Englishmen, “or Scotsmen, chosen, as
was alleged, on account of their treachery to Scot-
tish interests, and received but little support even
from local authorities. If in their occasional

INTERIOR OF THE SIGNET LIBRARY. (Frvma View pub iufud i* 1829)

able charge, the stories' of none have created more
excitement than those of Captain Porteous, of
Katherine Nairne, and another prisoner named
Hay $ and singular to say, the names of none of
them appear in the mutilated record just quoted.
Porteous has been called the real hero of the
Tolbooth. “The mob that thundered at its
ancient portals on the eventful night of the 7th of
September^ 1736, and dashed through its biasing
embers to drag forth the victim of their indignant
revenge, has cast into shade all former acts of
Lymh Law, for which die Edinburgh populace
were once to notorious.” But the real secret and
mainspring of die whole tr a g e dy was jealousy of
the treatment of Scotland by the ministry in

collisions with smugglers they shed blood, tney
were at once prosecuted, 'and an outcry was raised
that Englishmen should not be allowed to daughter
Scotsmen with impunity." At length these quarrels
led to and culminated in the Porteous mob.

The seaport towns with which the coast of Fife
is so thickly studded were at this dme much
infested by Scottish bands of daring smugglers,
many of whom had been buccaneers in the Antilles
and Gulf of Florida, and thus were constantly at
war with the revenue officials. One of these contra-
bandists*, named Wilson, in revenge for various
seizures and fines, determined to rob die collector
of Customs at Pittenweem, and in this, with the aid
of a lad named Robertson and two others, he foUy
s uc ceeded. They were all appr ehended , and tried;

flaTotbocdO

WitSON EXECUTED.

Wilson and Robertson were sentenced to death,
without the slightest hope of a pardon. While the
annuals were lying in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh,

escape, which no one for a
marring. *

The success of this daring achievement,

by the aid of two horse-stealers, who were confined it doubly sealed his own late, removed a

m a cell immediately above them, they succeeded
in cutting the iron stanchels of a window, singing
psalms the while to drown all sound One of
the horse-stealers succeeded m getting through the
aperture, and the

other might have
escaped m the
same way but for
the obstinacy of
Wilson, who in-
sisted on making
the next attempt:

Being a bulky man
he stuck fast be-
tween the bars, the
gudeman of the
'1 olbooth was
speedily made
aware of the at-
tempt, and took
sure means to pre-
clude a repetition
of it The charac-
ter of Wilson the
smuggler was not
without some no-
ble qualities, and
he felt poignant
regret for the sel-
fish obstinacy by
which he had pre-
vented the escape
of young Robot-
son; thus he
formed the secret
resolution of sav-

mg his comrade’s n(M THK tolbooth how ih the acorniH ahtiquaeuh

life, at any risk S, Gtidk. a, tmm lock, j. Padlock 4, Stag* frlimOMd.

of his own. On

the Sunday before the execution, according to the
custom of the period, the criminals were taken to
that pail of St Giles's named the Tolbooth ki rk, to
Hear the asnaon preached for their especial benefit,
but under custody of four s oldie r s of die Cfcy
Guard, armed with their Uyonctv. On the di*
missel of the

' X — — iu mgf — W ' w .

' ‘ two of

remorse from the mind of Wilson, end i
much sympathy in his behalf, that it Wss <
rumoured an attempt would be made to i
at the {dace of execution. When die day tat A#

»4*

April, 17)6— it
was found ton the
magistrates W
taken ample pee
cautions to eafeinto
toe law. Altotod
the scaffold wto a

strong body of tow
City Guard, whSe
a detachment of
toe Welsh Fusiliers
— which
Elliot oT
toe future tied
Heatofield, had
just joined as f>
volunteer— dhe
under arms in toe
principal street.
Yam amUtuta
had assembled, bat
their behaviour was
subdued nd Or-
derly W the
teitiSe
bad '

ted, and toe bedy

of Wilson owing
from toe

bet in the Gm»
market Then *
yefl of Age end

who brake through ell wetot end j
City Guard with esrny eiek they dolhi
The body of Andrew WBeoa i
an attempt made to maf U « ft,. It
at
that
to

mm

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

lied for shelter to a boose in
^and die mob earned all before
iJHwteous, the commander erf the Guard,
officer, who had seen some service
l Scots Brigade in Holland ; but he was a
> proud man, of profligate character, who, it
alleged, rendered himself odious to the
i by the severity with which he punished the
; of the poor, compared with his leniency to
T the wealthy. His fierce pride was roused to boding
heat He had resented the escape of Robertson
as an imputation upon the City Guard ; and also
Yesented, as an insult, the presence of the Welsh
Fusiliers in die city, where no drums were per-
mitted to be beaten save his own and those of
the 95th or Edinburgh Regiment, and he was
therefore well indined to vent his wrath on Wilson,
as the danse of all these affronts. It would seem that
on the morning of the execution, he appeared, by
those who saw him, to be possessed by an evil spirit.
It is alleged that he treated Wilson with brutal
severity before leaving the prison ; and when the
riot began, after the execution, and the City Guard
was slowly returning up the steep West Bow, and
facing about from time to time under showers of
missiles, which broke some bones and dashed the
drums to pieces, it iB said that he not only ordered

his soldiers to 44 level their pieces and be d d 1*

but snatched a musket from one and shot a ring-
leader dead (Charles Husband, the man who cut
down Wilson) ; then a ragged volley followed, and
six or seven more fell killed or wounded.

An Edinburgh crowd never has been easily in-
timidated ; the blood of the people was fairly up
now, and they closed in upon the soldiers with
louder imprecations, and heavier volleys of stones.
A jecond rime the Guard faced about and fired,
filling the steep narrow street, with smoke, and
produdAg the most fatal results; and as all who
were killed or wounded belonged to the better
class of citizens — some of whom were viewing the
tumult Born their own windows— public indigna-
tion, became irrepressible. Captain John Porteous
was therefore brought to trull for murder, and
H Wt en oe d to die in the usual manner on the 8th of
fiegne ttfoer, 1738. His defence was that his men
jhMd without Aiders; that his own fusil when shown
All tfmdetgfbtmtee wee dean ; and that the fact of
jtihife kmuio lm&*mmimirio&amouiited 44 to lmlr—
1 wider tofiw when it became necessary."
\ i m efo<u oatheCotttmcn^aaaQo^
fa

thsa.di*,Edco[
foeH w»Offioelhe knew not

a six weeks* reprieve, preparatory to grating a Jug
pardon, was sent down. 44 The tidings that a re-
prieve had been obtained by Porteous created
great indignation among the dtieene of the capital <
they regarded the royal intervention in his behalf
as a proof that the unjust English Government weir
disposed to treat the slaughter of Scotsmen by a
military officer as a very venial offence, and a reso-
lution was formed that Porteous should not
the punishment which his crime deserved.**

On the night of the 7th September, according to
a carefully-arranged plan, a small party of citizens,
apparently of the lower class, preceded by a drum,
appeared in the suburb called Portsburgh. At the
sound of the drum the fast-swelling mob assembled
from all quarters ; the West Port was seized, nailed,
and barricaded. Marching rapidly along the Cow
gate, with numbers increasing at every step, and all
more or less well-armed, they poured into the
High Street, and seized the Nether Bow Port, to
cut off all communication with the Welsh Fusiliers,
then quartered in the Canongate. While a strong
band held this important post, the City Guardsmen
were seized and disarmed in detail ; their armoury
was captured, and all their muskets, bayonets, hal-
berts, and Lochaber axes, distributed to the crowd,
which with cheers of triumph now assailed the Tol-
booth, while strong bands held the street to the
eastward and westward, to frighten all who might
come either from the Castle or Canongate. Thus
no one would dare convey a written order to the
officers commanding in these quarters from the
magistrates, and Colonel Moyle, of the 23rd, very
properly declined to move upon the verbal message
of Mr. Lindsay, M.P. for the dty.

Meanwhile the din of sledge-hammers, bars, and
axes, resounded on the ponderous outer gate of the
Tolbooth. Its vast strength defied all efforts, till a
voice cried, “Try it with fire I” Tar-barrels and
other combustibles were brought ; the red flames
shot upward, and the gate was gradually reduced to
cinders, and through these and smoke the mob
rushed in with shouts of triumph. The keys of the
cells were torn from the trembling wilder. The
apartment in which Porteous was confined was
searched in vain, as it seemed at first, rill the
unhappy creature was found to 'have crept up the
Chimney. This he had dqse at the risk of suffoca-
tion, but his upward pro gress was stopped by
iron glaring, which is often placed across thuvmts
of soft edifice s for the aafce of security, sad *
this he dung by trie Angry, with a tenacity
netr, md rim fear of a dmfidfid
in what fiahn^and at 'sfoonMfofide

^Tolbootk]

PORTEOUS EXECUTED.

gome proposed to slap him on the spot, was told
I )y others to prepare for that death elsewhere
which justice had awarded him ; but amid all their
ituy, the rioters conducted themselves generally with
gnm and mature deliberation. Porteous was allowed
to entrust his money and papers with a person who
was in prison for debt, and one of the rioters kindly
and humanely offered him the last consolation re-
ligion can afford. The dreadful procession, seen
by tfiousands.of eyes from the crowded windows,
was then begun, and amid the gleam of links and
torches, that tipped with fire the blades of hun-
dreds of weapons, the crowd poured down the
West Bow to the Grassmarket. So coolly and
deliberately did they proceed, that when one of
Porteous’ slippers dropped from his foot, as he was
borne sobbing and praying along, they halted, and
replaced it In the Bow the shop of a dealer in
cordage (over whose door there hung a grotesque
figure, still preserved) was broken open, a rope
taken therefrom, and a guinea left in its stead.
On reaching the place of execution, still marked
by an arrangement of the stones, they were at a loss
for a gibbet, till they discovered a dyer’s pole in its
immediate vicinity. They tied the rope round the
neck of their victim, and slinging it over the cross-
beam, swung him up, and speedily put an end to
his sufferings and his life ; then the roar of voices
that swept over the vast place and re-echoed up the
Castle rocks, announced that all was over 1 But
ere this was achieved Porteous had been twice let
down and strung up again, while many struck him
with their Lochaber axes, and tried to cut off his
ears.

Among those who witnessed this scene, and never
forgot it, was the learned Lord Monboddo, who had
that morning come for the first time to Edinburgh.
44 When about retiring to rest (according to 4 Kay’s
Portraits *) his curiosity was excited by the noise and
tumult in' the streets, and in place of going to bed,
he slipped to the door, half-dressed, with a night-
cap on his head. He speedily got entangled in
the crowd of passers-by, and was hurried along with
them to the Grassmarket, where he became an
involuntary witness of the last act of the tragedy.
This scene so deep an impression on his
lordship, that it not only deprived him of sleep for
the remainder of the night, but induced him to
think of leaving the city altogether, as a place unfit
for a civilised being to live in. His lordship
frequently related this i n c ide n t in after Kfc, and
on these nrrssyms described with modi force the
e&*ct k fcad'wfon him.* Lord Monboddo dmd

A| mm ns the ifotecs bad ********* dmtr.ven*

* ••

geance, they toiled away their WeapoafSrimd <
dispersed ; and when themooriug of the 8
tember stole in nothing remained of fee qvtti^w
the fire-blackened cinders of the To&ooth door, the
muskets and Lochaber axes scattered in the stcaigi*
and the d e ad body of Porteous twinging
breeze from the dyer’s pole. According 10 4be
Caledonian Mercury of 9th September, 173d* the
body of Porteous was interred on the second day
the Greyfriars. The Government

m

perated, and resolved to inflict summary vengeance
on the city. Alexander Wilson, the Lord Protest,
was arrested, but admitted fb bail after three weeks’
incarceration. A Bill was introduced into Partin*
ment materially affecting the city, but the daunts for
the further imprisonment of the innocent P rovost ,
abolishing the City Guard, and dismantling the
gates, were left out when amended by the Com-
mons, and in place of these a small fine of £t f ooo
in favour of Captain Porteous' widow was imposed
upon Edinburgh. Thus terminated this extra*
ordinary conspiracy, which to this day remains a
mystery. Large rewards were offered in vain for
the ringleaders, many of whom had been disguised
as females. One of them is said to have been
the Earl of Haddington, dad in his cook-msid’s
dress. The Act of Parliament enjoined the pro-
clamation for the discovery of the rioters should be
read from the parish pulpits on Sunday, but many
clergymen refused to do so, and there was no power
to compel them ; and the people remembered with
much bitterness that a certain Captain Lind, of the
Town Guard, who had given evidence iniCdfobmgh
tending to incriminate the magistrates, was rew Adsd
by a commission in Lord Tyrawley’ s $or s th British
Fusiliers, now 7 th Foot

The next prisoner in the Tdbooth who c test e d
an intensity of interest in the minds of cotitera

poraries was Katherine Nairn, the young and
beautiful daughter of Sir Robert Nairn, Bart, a
lady allied by blood and marriage to many fiuntiics
of the best position. Her crime was a double
one— that of poisoning her husband, OgHtfe at
Eutmilne, and of having an intrigoa with Mi
youngest brother Patrick, a lien tenant of the -CM
Gordon Highlanders, disbanded, aa we dnshm
s tat e d, in 1765. The victim, to whom rite had
been married in her ninete e n th jmr,rine » ttmh
of p ropert y, but te advanced hi in, and har

I® ■

by which the hepj>»ms«#n|hHl>iad»

ficeri to worldly policy. Oh her mini itrUpdidg

;•» aerith lathy, and
wm enpec pad by eel

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

1 w&m w*s roused, and she was
r rescued from rough treatment
f i lull in her case, as in some
J walls of the okl Tolbooth proved
Idf retaining a culprit of courage and high
The final passing of the fatal sentence
I delayed by the Lords on account of the
^pregnancy. Mrs. Shields, the midwife who
her accouchement (and who was a public
dtioner in the city so lately as 1805), “ had the
^hddness to achieve a jail deliveiy also/ For three
or four days previous to the concerted escape she
pretended to be afflicted with a maddening tooth-
ache, and went in and out of the Tolbooth with
her head and face muffled in shawls and flannels,
and groaning as if life were
a burden to her. At length,
when the warders and sen-
tinels had become fully used
to see her thus, Katherine
Naim came down one even-
ing in her stead, with her
head enveloped, with the
usual groans, and holding
her hands upon her face, as
if in agony. The warder of
the inner door, as she passed
out, gave her a slap on the
back, calling her a “ howling
old Jezebel,” and adding a
“ hope that she would trouble
him no more.”

In herconfusion, and per-
haps ignorance of the city,
she knocked at the door of
Lord Alya, in James's Court,
mistaking his house for that of her father’s agent
The^botboy who opened the dpor had a candle
in his hand; and having been in court during
the tune of her recent trial, immediately recognised
her, and raised the hue and cry. She then fled
'dftjfril jl neighbouring dose, and achieved con-
titoakjtetit'fhr a time in the immediate vicinity of
the Tolbooth, in a cellar about half-way down the
<fid hack mans o£ the Parliament Close belonging
to the, other unde, W. Naim, advocate (after-
ward* ;Leid'J)i»ainaneV from whence she was
eun&tftAttt Dover in a post-chaise by one of that

tfdinmybgrifa* conduct.

flu rfo> oficg.

eh* ‘ ‘ “

In the Tolbooth, in 1770, Mungo CatnpbeU 1

muted suicide when under sentence of deat h for
shooting the Earl of Eglinton. But his body was
dragged through the streets by the mob, who thra*
it from the summit of Salisbury C^raigs into the
chasm known as the Cat Nick.

In 1782 the Tolbooth was visited by the philan-
thropist John Howard, and again, five yean sub-
sequently, when he expressed his honor of it, and
hoped to have found a better one in its place ; and
in 1783 there occurred one of the last lemarlubfe
escapes therefrom. James Hay, a lad of eighteen,
son of a stabler in the Grassmarket, was a prisoner
in November, under sentence of death for robbery,
and a few days before that appointed for his exe-
cution, the father visited the
condemned cell, apparently
to condole with his un-
happy son. When night
was closing in and visitors
were compelled to retire, old
Hay invited the keeper oi
the inner door to partake of
some liquor he had brought
with him. He did so, and
became rather tipsy about
the time for finally locking
the gates-— ten o’clock. Hay
expressed some regret to
part just at a moment when
they were beginning to enjoy
their liquor, and proposed
that his companion should
run out and procure a bottle
of good rum from aneighbour-
ing tavern. The turnkey con-
sented, and staggered down the turnpike stair, ne-
glecting to lock the inner door behind him. As
had been concerted, young James Hay followed
dose behind him ; but the outer warder dosed the
outer door when the panting prisoner was about to
spring into the street ! At that dread moment old
Hay put his head to the great window of the hall,
and gave the authoritative order then in use,
44 Turn your hand!” the usual drawling cry which
hourly brought the outer warder to unlock the
external gate. Mechanically the man obeyed ; the
young culprit sprang out, mad while his fotber and
Ae turnkey were jovially discussing the ram, he
fled Hkc a hunted hare down Beith’s steep wynd,
that lay opposite die Tolbooth, end, accottfingto a
preconcerted plan, scaled the waflsof theGrajfiiai*
the lower tphs, * f

LORD MONBODDO. G i/Ur Kay)

<foer##»o^e lemagfte; but so waft 1 hod every Mfij*

mmnms seen * M —g eu> muz a Huge ummrugj p*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

1 4 lNM to ftdlitate the act James
with a kqr that opened the
tfe-of the gloomy-domed mausoleum
w ; Ihckcnaie, a place still full of tsror
it 'is supposed to be h a u n t ed hy die
id spirit of the persecutor, and there he
1 himself, while the following advertisement

d in the EdMurgk Aivertiur of the 24th

^‘November, 1783

« Escaped fhom the Tolbooth op Edinburgh,

“ Jurats Hay, indicted for highway robbery, Sgod about 18
greats, by trade a glacier, 5 feet 10 inchest high, slender
mad* pale complexion, king visage, brown hair cat short,
pitted a little in the fee* with the small-pox, speaks slow
with a deer in his tone, and has a mole on one of his cheeks.
The magistrates offer a reward of Twenty Gmtuas to any
person who will apprehend and secure the said James Hay,
to be paid by the City Chamberlain, on the said James Hay
being re-committed to the Tolbooth of this city.”

But James Hay had been a “ Herioter,” brought

merry loungers. A small mil here served as an
additional security, no prisoner being permitted to
come within its pale. Here, also, a sentinel of the
Town Guard was always walking with a bayonet or
a ramrod in his hand. The ball being also the chapel
of the gaol, contained an old pulpit of singular
fashion— such a pulpit as one could have imagined
Knox to have preached from, and which indeed
he is traditionally said to have actually done. At
the right hand side of the pulpit was a door, lead-
ing up the large turnpike (stair) to the apartments
occupied by the criminals, one of which was of
plate-iron. The door was always shut, except
when food was taken up to the prisoners. On the
west end of the hall hung a board, whereon was
inscribed the following emphatic lines : —

' A prison is a house of care,

A place where none can thrive;

A touchstone true to try a friend,

A grave for men alive.

up in the famous hospital which adjoins the ancient
and gloomy burying-ground j thus, he contrived to
make known his circumstances to some of his boy-
ish friends, and besought them to assist him in his
distress, as it was impossible for his fathe* to do
so. Avery clannish spirit animated “the Auld
Herioters " of those days, and not to succour one
of the community, however undeserving he might
be of aid, would have been deemed by them as a
crime of the foulest nature ; thus, Hay's school-
fellows supplied his wants from their own meals,
conveying him food in his eerie lurking-place, by
scaling the old smoke-blackened and ivied walls, at
the risk of severe punishment, and of seeing sights
“uncanny, 4 *. for six weeks, till the hue and cry
abated, when he ventured to leave the tomb in the
night, and escaped abroad or to England, beyond
reach of the law.

“ The principal entrance to the Tolbooth," to
quote one familiar with the old edifice, “ was at the
bottom of the turret next the church. The gate-
way was of good carved stonework, and occupied
by a door of ponderous massiveness and strength,
having, besides the lock, a flap padlock, which,
however, was generally kept unlocked during the
day; In front of the door there always paraded a
private of the Town Guard, with hit maty-red
dojfrws'fnd Loc ha b cr axe or musket The doer
At principal gateway was in the final
'Michael Retries’ shoeAcps"
hfthgj ; jfr pwfr bm a driefs hole. After father

Sometimes a place of right,

Sometimes a place of wrong,

Sometimes a place for jades and thieves,

And honest men among.'

The floor immediately above the hall was occupied
by one room for felons, having a bar along part
of the floor, to which condemned criminals were
chained, and a square box of plate-iron in the centre
was called 'the cage* which was said to have been
constructed for the purpose of confining some extra-
ordinary culprit who had broken half the jails in the
kingdom. Above this room was another of the same
size appropriated to felons." At the western end
was the platform where public executions took place.

Doomed to destruction, this gloomy and massive
edifice, of many stirring memories, was swept away
in 1817, and the materials of it were used for the
construction of the great sewers and drains in the
vicinity of Fettes Row, emphatically styled “ the
grave of the old Tolbooth.” The arched doorway,
door, and massive lock, 'Sir Walter Scott engrafted
on a part of his mansion at Abbotsford ; and in
1839 he found that “a tom-tit was pleased to
build her nest within the lock of the Tolbooth--*
a strong temptation, ” he adds, in the edition of bis
works issued in the following year, “to have com-
mitted a sonnet**

The City Guard-house formed long a “pendicle"
— 4 o use a Scottish term— of the old Tdbootb.
Scott has described this edifice as “a long;
ugjty building, which, to a fendfol iiwngfrwiirtnmi
She Meaefafenc P**
m ew pu of toe High
.. . J p p h a w J t .lt emA

iu fro nt of As Black ThKafSket and i frn l g g As

, Amfrn rifty AnB Ana Bug

| fett-'Aqr

Th, Tolbootk]

THE OLD TOWN GUARD.

impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when
drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden
horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and “ ajdrink-
jng cup,* as Nicoll names it, on their head. *“ The
chronicles of this place of petty durance, could
they now be recovered, would furnish many an
amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed
at rate intervals with the graver deeds of such
disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack
of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as
the witty and eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter
of Lord Royston, found at times a night’s lodging,
when she and her maid sallied out as prevx cheva-
liers in search of adventures. Occasionally even
a grave judge or learned lawyer, surprised out of
his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial
club, was astonished, on awaking, to find himself
within its impartial walls, among such strange bed-
fellows as the chances of the night had offered
to its vigilant guardians.” A slated building of
one storey in height, it consisted of four apart-
ments. In the western end was the captain’s room;
"here was also a 44 Burghers’ room,” for special pri-
soners ; in the centre was a common hall ; and at
the east end was an apartment devoted to the
use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under
the captain’s room was the black-hole, in which
coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In 1785
this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground,
and the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the
new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters
finally assigned them on the ground floor of the
old Tolbooth.

It is impossible to quit our memorials of the
latter without a special reference to the famous
old City Guard, with which it was inseparably
connected

In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden,
all male inhabitants of the city were required to
he in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men
were selected as a permanent or standing watch,
and in diem originated the City Guard, which, |
however, was not completely constituted until
1648, when the Town Council appointed a body
of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain
was, says Amot, 4# t© have the monthly pay of
j£ix as. 3d sterling, two lieutenants of £2 each,
two s erg ean ts of £1 5s., three corporals of £i f
and the private men 15s. each per month."

No regular ted bring provided to defiay this
expend ate Mite it* old method of “w a t chin g
• every fourth eaten to be «0 duty fa,
ft; hot those, be adds.

laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council 1
the magistrates that if they did not .
efficient guard to preserve order in*the
regular troops of the Scottish aimy would ,be
quartered in it

Upon this threat forty armed men were
h guard in 1679, and in consequence of aShriNtat
which occurred in 168a, this number was increased
to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot,
caused by an attempt to carry off a number ol
lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for
trivial offences, to serve tb_£ Prince of Omng& as
soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith,
under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the
latter. By order of Mfcjor Keith, commanding, the
soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two
women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded.
One of the women being with child, it was cut ten
her and baptised in the street The excitement of
this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for
whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while
Patrick Graham e, a younger son of Inchbcrikie--*
the same officer whom Macaulay so pciristejatly
confounds with Claverhouse — was appointed cap-
tain, with the concurrence of the Duke of York
and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drum-
mers’ is., and the sergeants* is. 6 d. In 1685
Patrick Grahame, 44 captain of His Majesty's
company of Foot, within the town of Edmbuigh
(the City Guard), was empowered to import 300
ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with
wrappings and other necessaries, fat t^e clothing
of the corps, this being in regard that the i&umte'
tones are not able to furnish tyis MaJ
(Scottish) forces with cloth and other ut&OMtfiea. 1 ’

After the time of the Revolution the number of
the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period,
after 1750, it consisted usually of only eev e n t yte
men, a force most unequal to the duty to bo done,
“The Lord Provost is commander of this useful
corps,” wrote Amot, in 1779. 44 The men am pro-
perly disciplined, and fire remarkably wetL Within
these two yean some disorderly soldien in one of
the marching regiments, haring conceived m um-
brage at the Town Guard, attacked them, They
were double in number to the party of the Town
Guard, who, in the scuf f l e, severely wounded some
of their assailants, and nude the wbote/prieetel*
By day they were aimed with mu s k ets srid bf
at night with Loduter sxea Tfctfi vftH '

Hig hla nders, aH old aoldieai, oMUjref fk
aervoir so v-i w so rmgayee w

A**J

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

tfUQfluA

mmmn mob, in 1736, on which

* pension for life. (Edtn^

uy^^lMalliip (19th of May, 1789) the three
^plWwili i ir of the City Guard were reviewed by the
niipliltrii on the Calton HilL The men now
this corps have all been in the army
(eoeeptafew), and the captains having all served
la the line last war, a remarkable improvement
and dexterity were observed m their manoeuvres
and exactness of firing. The magistrates compli-

Highland bard Duncan Madntyte, usually call&
Dnuuha Bhan. This man,' really an exquiw*
poet to those understanding his language, became
the object of interest to many educated persons m
Perthshire, his native county. The Earl of Bread-
albane sent to let him know that he wished to
befriend him, and Was anxious to procure him
some situation that might put him comparatively
at his ease. Poor Duncan returned -his thanks,
and asked his lordship to get him into the Edin-
burgh Town Guard-pay 6<i a day 1 * Donacha

THE OuAto-KOUSB AND BLACK TURNPIKE {Frwm M Etching if fmnm Skene tint aim*.)

mented the commanding officer, and gave a hand-
•oqtp donation to the men for their behaviour.
The magistrates have ordered the night sentinels
to be furnished with rattles, similar to those of the
watchmen m London, in case of fire or riot, for
the purpose of early assistance from the main
jpwA* <WMy8*) All the officers wore bul-
arnct guoea gorgets.

A|ee*j5#Jtaf p^wjwr. * A humble HMtote
m *&&*'*■ bath when he w« «-

A kaU&dMe ttaawtM

Bhan died in i8iij in the 89th year of bis age,
and was laid in the Grey friars' churchyard. When
the old Guard paraded in the Parliament Close, on
the day after the battle of Falkirk, more than
one musket in the ranks was found to be foul, a
significant sign that they had been used against the
red-coats foe day before. Writing; in 1817. °*
these veterans, Scott says, " A spectre may, indeed,
here and there he seen of an old grey hmded and
grey-bearded HMfomde* with warworn ftMrtfo
but bent double by age, frtuia8 man old ftaM-i aed
eedked hat, b o un d wi t h e A ft+m p e aatmd gf
iuo&Bad fnmmt "Tnlttrifrtff rwr dortitr

Aja.™ JL tm

mm mi www

THE CITY GUARD-HOUSE. (AJttr Kay.)

weapon called a Lochaber axe. Such a phantom and the modem {police took its place. The list
of former days still creeps, I have been informed, | duty performed by these old soldiers was to milch

nond the t*-n$ «f fWV - II. in the Puiianent to HaHoir Fair, on rtkk o ocwfal Mr 4MANW
Sqom* m if Vie image of a Stuart were the tat and fifes flayed MW *ad mOf—
wfcoo far any memorial of out iiMVflt **T hafatfae I^oof a(W AdXlii;*

fa Apr mt Ac Guard was faeUy dhfaodadt ScMt fotfahofa Ufa fat fa SNlt faMF’SdfSNB

1

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

nW °- i T||^

S m dftfa eoips would make their last actual their ancestors and successors, were attached te
Mtk public at the laying of die foundation most royal foundations, and they are mentioned in
ri W oaa e n t, on the 15th of August, 1840. the chartulary of Moray, about iss6. The number
‘ * $to'lkst captain of the Guard was James Burnet, of these Bedesmen was increased by one every

'sdatM. 1 11 •

hMUfte only military ex-
perience had been gained m

Brie 1 st Regiment of Edin-
burgh Volunteers, and pre-
vious to appointment he had
been a grocer at the head
of the Flesh-market Close.

He died at Seton, on the
*4th of August, 1814.

One other^memorial of
the Tolbooth S j^ pl^qaar-
ter of it whi(M^^W|med
“The Puir

oil theUorth sifi)^ffi|grived
its cognomen ffe%fulng the
place where the ancient fra-
ternity of Blue Gowns } or
King’s Faithful Bedesmen,
received the royal bounty pre-
sented to them on each king’s lochaber ax*s <
77 , , “ “ , 6 (F, am tk* Scottuh

birthday, m a leathern purse,

after having attended service in St Giles’s church,

LOCHABER AXbS OF THE CITT GUARD.
( Ft am tk* Scottuh Antiquarian Museum )

royal birthday, as a penny
was added to the pension of
each, an arrangement doubt-
less devised to stimulate their
prayers for the life of the
• reigning monarch. For many
years previous to the destruc-
tion of the Tolbooth. the
distribution of a roll of
bread, a tankard of ale, a
blue gown, and a curiously-
made leathern purse, was
transferred to the Canon-
gate kirk aisle. With the
usual parsimony of the Im-
perial Government in most
matters connected with Scot-
land — matters of more im-
port than this — the badges,

J^uai^nh^eum 1 ) gowns, and pensions, have all

meum been discontinued, and the

poor Bedesmen are now among the things that

The origin of this fraternity is of great antiquity, were, while a precisely similar charity is retained to
Bedesmen to pray for the bouIs of the Scottish kings, this day at Windsor.

CHAPTER XV.

THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES.

St Gita's Church— The Patron Saint— Its Origin and early Norman style- The Renovation of 1829— History of the Structure— Procession of the
Satafs Relics— The Preston Relic— The Chapel of the Duke of Albany— Funeral of the Regent Murray*— The “Gude Regent's Aisle”—
The Assembly Aisle— Dispute between James VI. and the Church Party— Departure of James VI.— Haddo’s Hole— The Napier Tomb—
The Spire aad lantern— Clock end Bells -The Kramea— Re tor a aon of 1878.

The church of St Giles, or Sanctus Egidius, as lived with him on the fruits of the earth and the
he is termed in Latin, was the first parochial one milk of a hind. As Flavius Wamba, King of the
erected in the city, and its history can be satisfac- Goths, was one day hunting in the neighbourhood
torily deduced from the early part of the rath qjf Nismes, his hounds pursued her to the hermitage
century, when it superseded, or was engrafted on of the saint, where she took refuge. This hind
an edifice "of much smaller size and older date, has been ever associated with St. Giles, and its
one founded about xoo years after the death of figure is to this day the sinister supporter of the
its patron saint, the abbot and confessor St Giles, city turns. (“Caledonia,” ii., p. 773.) St Giles
who was bom in Athena,' of noble— some say royal died in 721* on the xst of September, which was
"~pamxtai^ and who, while young, sold his pain- always held as his festival in Edinbmgh ; and to some
loony and left hit native country, to the end dud disciple of the Benedictine establishment in the
-he mWht serve Clod in retirement In the year south of Fiance we doubtless owe the dedication
* m m drilled at Provence, in die south of France, of die parish church there. He owes his memory
sfftiofcbaiMk ma m * m* Aries; but afterwards, in the English capital to Matilda of Scotland,
mate M&fci aaliMileL&e withdrew into** dueen of Henry. L who founded fibers St Gfleft
■fete MW faqi*, in Wmi St N im**, hiuAaf boapitdfarfapemiamy. titott, Ackqppni*
doefiaiBlttL Iteadmm. who 1 whii>im«wiu*ii i hfiimwrf iimiUi took fetname

St Giles'* Chunk]

THE EARLY CHURCH,

from the Greek recluse; and the master and brethren
of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to
every felon as he passed their gate to Newgate.

Among the places enumerated by Simon Dunel-
mensis, of Durham, as belonging to the see
of Lindisfam in 854, when Eamulph, who re-
moved it to Chester-le-Street, was bishop, he in-
cludes that of Edinburgh. From this it must
be distinctly inferred that a church of some
kind* existed on the long slqpe that led to Dun
Edin, but ncf authentic record of it occurs till the
reign of King Alexander II., when Baldred deacon
of Lothian, and John perpetual vicar of the
church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, attached their
seals to copies of certain Papal bulls and charters
of the church of Megginche, a dependency of the
church of Holyrood ; and (according to the Liber
Cartarum Sanctae Cruets) on the Sunday before the
feast of St. Thomas, in the year 1293, Donoca,
(laughter of John, son of Herveus, resigned certain
lands to the monastery of Holyrood, in full consis-
tory, held in the church of St. Giles. In an Act
passed in 13*9, in the reign of Robert I., the church
is again mentioned, when William the bishop of St.
Andrews confirmed numerous gifts bestowed upon
the abbey and its dependencies. In 1359 King
David II., by a charter under his great seal, con-
firmed to the chaplain officiating at the altar of St.
Catherine in the church of St Giles all the lands
of Upper Merchiston, the gift of Roger Hog,
burgess of Edinburgh. It is more than probable
that the first church on the site was of wood. St.
Paul’s Cathedral, at London, was burned down in
961* and built up again within the year. Of what
must the materials have been? asks Maitland.
Burned again in 1187, it was rebuilt on arches of
stone — “ a wonderful work,” say the authors of the
day. I

A portion of the church of St. Giles was arched
with stone in 1380, as would appear from a con-
tract noted by Maitland, who has also preserved
the terms of another contract, made in 1387* be- 1
tween the provost and community of Edinburgh
on one hand, and two masons on the other, for the
construction of five separate vaulted chapels along j
the south side of the church, the architectural
features of which prove its existence at a period
long before any of these dates, and when Edin-
burgh was merely a cluster of thatched huts.

The edifice, as it now stands, is a building
including the work of many different and remote
period* By all men of taste and letters in Edm-
bwgh h has' been a general subject of regret that
die restoration in 1899 was conducted in a man
net so barbarous and irre ve re n t, that many of its

ancient features and its ancient tombs were maaaf
away. The first stone church was pmfalMpP
Norman architecture. A beautiful Nom&ilBft
way, which stood below the third window ftou* the
west, was wantonly destroyed towards the end of
the eighteenth century. "This fiagmenL%Ms
Wilson, "sufficiently enables us to pictimr'fte
little parish church of St Giles in the reign of
David I. Built in the massive style of the tarty
Norman period, it would consist simply of a nave
and chancel, united by a rich Norman chancel
arch, altogether occupying only a portion the
centre of the present nave: Small circulaivheaded
windows, decorated with zig-zag mouldings, would
admit the light to its sombre interior; while its
west front was in all probability surmounted by
a simple belfry, from whence the bell would sum-
mon the natives of the hamlet to matins and
vespers, and with slow measured sounds tdll their
knell, as they were laid in the neighbouring church-
yard. This ancient church was never entirely de-
molished. its solid masonry was probably veiy
partially affected by the ravages of the invading
forces of Edward II. in 1322, when Holyrood was
spoiled, or by those of his son in 1335, when
the whole country was wasted with fire and sword.
The town was again subjected to the like violence,
probably with results little more lasting, by the
conflagration of 1385, when the English army
under Richard II. occupied the town for five days,
and then laid it and the abbey of Holyrood in
ashes. The Norman architecture disappeared
piecemeal, as chaj>els and aisles wear added to
the original fabric by the piety of private' denars,
or by the zeal of its own clergy to adapt it to
| the wants of the rising town. In all tne^diiages
that it underwent for above seven centuries, the
original north door, with its beautifully receased
Norman arches and grotesque decorations, always
commanded the veneration of the innovators, and
remained as a precrous relic of the pasty until the
tasteless improvers of the eighteenth century de-
molished it without a cause, and probably for no
better reason than to evade the cost of its repair l”
In the year 1463 great additions and repairs
appear to have been in progress, fur the Town
Council then pas sed a law that afl persons netting
com before it was entered should forfcfc one dud*
der to church work. In the year k was
erected into a collegiate church by James 111*
the foundation co nsi s t fa g (a c cording to Bttljfr efot
others) yf a provost, curate, sixteen pr^toMfl
saemtaaj beadle, minister of the dfeofc, toll
cho ris t e rs. Various wans of money, lands* fokto,
te*'«ero nyptoprinted for foe s u p po se of fon JMto

ftLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

IfcflWiaM

iwmfl Haitland gives us a roll of the
\ altarages therein.

dated twelve yean before
the gratitude of the
who had brought from France a
. Criles, and, modernised, it runs thus : —
aed to all men by these present letters,
provost, bailies, counselle and commu-
of the buigh of Edynburgh, to be bound
hnd obliged to William Prestoune of Gourton, son
and heir to somewhile William Prestoune of Gour-
ton, and to the friends and sur-
name of them, that for so much
that William Prestoune the**
father, whom God assoile, made
diligent labour, to, high and
mighty prince, W King of
Franco (Ouu«l#II.) y and
mahy other lord* of France, for
getting the arm-bone of St Gile,
the which bone he freely left to
our mother kirk of St Gile of
Edinburgh, without making any
condition. We, considering the
great labour and costs that he
made for getting thereof, promise
that within six or seven years,
in all the possible and goodly
haste we may, that we shall
build an aisle forth from our
Ladye aisle, where the said Wil-
liam lies, the said aisle to be
begun within a year, in which
aisle there shall be brass for his
Uir in bost (t.e. for his grave in
embossed) work, and above the
brass a writ, specifying the
bringing of that Rylik by him ,
into Scotland, with his arms, and
hn arms to be put'in hewn
work, in three other parts of the aisle, with book
and chalice and all other furniture belonging
thereto, ^lso* that we shall assign the chaplain
of whilOme Sir William of Prestoune, to sing at the

altar horn that time forth Item, that

as often as the said Rylik is borne in the year,
that the surname and nearest of blood of the said
William shall bear the said Rylik, before all
others, &e. In witness of which things we have
*et to our common seal at Edinburgh die nth
day of the month of January, in the year of our
M *454.**

The t *tt«r am of St Gigs it preserved in the

SEAL OF ST. GILES f

church of his name in the Scottish quarter ot
Bruges, and on the ist of September is yearly
borne through the ^streets, preceded by all die
drums in the garrison.

To this hour the arms of Preston still remain in
the roof of the aisle, as executed by the engage-
ment in the charter quoted; and the Prestons
continued annually to exercise their right of bear-
ing the arm of the patron saint of the city until
the eventful year ^58, when the clergy issued
forth for the last time in solemn procession on
the day of his feast, the ist
September, bearing with them
a statue of St Giles— “a mar-
mouset idol,” Knox calls it—
borrowed from the Grey Friars,
because the great image of the
saint, which was as large as life,
had been stolen from its place,
and after being “drouned" in
the North Loch as an encou-
rager of idolatry, was burned
as a heretic by some earnest
Reformers. Only two years
before this event the Dean of
Guild had paid 6s. for paint-
ing the image, and iad. for
polishing the silver arm contain
ing the relic. To give dignity
to this last procession the
queen regent attended it in
person; but the moment she
left it the spirit of the mob
broke forth. Some pressed close
to the image, as if to join in
its support, while endeavouring
to shake it down; but this
proved impossible, so firmly was
( 4/frr Henry Leung ) ). it secured to its supporters ; and

the struggle, rivalry, and triumph
of the mob were delightful to Knox, who de-
scribed the event with the inevitable glee in which
he indulged on such occasions.

Only four years after all this the saint's silver-
work, ring and jewels, and all the rich vestments
wherewith his image and his arm-bone were wont
to be decorated on high festivals, were sold by
the authority of the magistrates, and the proceeds
employed in the repair of the church.

f Under a caaap* mpportod by tpfasl o*mm m fa—

St. OOm wfeb tk@ afanbw, hM* «M aMhr in hfa fate tea* w* fm
kk It* a book and a taw*. Ati&tfeanol m Ol

k.pkyfaftj kafaf * to tfc bo»A Q« »» yd««nl h a tkfrM WWi
tte tattk t fa l i u w w d, 8 <a—mc»fin»i row ■» ! — is iw

if St «r «*

nmm m riU J UMm fd . AJ*. MfM

In his “Monarchic," finished in 1553* the pun-
gent Sir David Lindesay of the Mount writes thus
of the processionists : —

M Fy on you foctererb of idoUtrie !

That fiU mat dtd stok does «k reverence

**KKaW L’ - “-

I eoanadl yon do ykjtmt di li ge nce.

To «ar mppnme mk graft tbnboof
Do y* nocfet ra» f draU 9
Soil be oodii doe, bm

The Lady aisle, where Preston's grave lagr agnet
the altar stood, was part of what fMM bow ttsa

south aisle of the chow called the H%l> Church, aad
on that altar man, of the artiest r ecoded ||Ki

The
church, from die
tribarians of

es a

lOLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

C8toa«.

i displayed in its endless |
how the general and
♦ied with each other in the
ecclesiastical edifices, the me
-^traders— few ot whom ever equaled
QL hi wanton ferocity— had re-crossed
Among these we may specially
the chapel of Robert Duke of Albany,
t (he most beautiful and interesting portion of
this Sadly defaced and misused old edifice. The
ornamental sculptures of this portion are of a
peculiarly striking character — heraldic devices
'forming the most prominent features oh the capital
of the great clustered pillar. On the south side
are the arms of Robert Duke of Albany, son of King
Robert II., and on the north are those of Archi-
bald fourth Earl if Douglas, Duke of Tourame
and Marshal of BMftce, who was slain at the battle
of Verneuil by the English. In 1401 David Duke
of Rothesay, the luckless son of Robert II., was
made a prisoner by his uncle, the designing Duke
of Albany, with the full consent of the aged king
his father, who had grown weary of the daily com-
plaints that were made against the prince. In the
“Fair Maid of Perth,” Scott has depicted with
thrilling effect the actual death of David, by the
slow process of starvation, notwithstanding the
intervention of a maiden and nurse, who met a
very different fate from that he assigns to them in
the novel, while in his history he expresses a doubt
whether they ever supplied the wants of the prince
in any way. According to the M Black Book” of
Scone, the Earl of Douglas was with Albany when
the prince was trepanned to Falkland, and having
probably been exasperated against the latter, who
was his own brother-in-law (having married his
sister Marjorie Douglas), for his licentious course
bf life, must have joined in the, projected assassi-
nation. *' Such are the two Scottish nobles whose
armorial bearings stiirgrace the capital of the pillar
in the old chapel It is the only other case in
which they are found acting in concert besides the
darh deed^ already referred to ; and it seems no
unreasonable inference to draw from such a coin-
cidence, that this chapel had been founded and
endowed by them as an expiatory offering for that
deed of blood, and its chaplain probably appointed
to say masses for their victim’s soul * (Wilson).

The comparative wealth of the Scottish Church
m timet days and for long after was considerable,
and m idea may be formed of it from the amount
jot the tenth of the benefices paid by the three
<0* ns ohm In Item* aodimthe Acts of Par
Vmm Of James IIL in 1471, and of James IV. in
,<Thn asemmt is torn a •Codex Merabra-

naceus,” in the Harleiaa Collection in the British
Museum

De terra Scotue <« £3,947 19 8

•• Hibfemi* 1,647 16 3

11 Anglin et Wallin ...... 20,873 2 44

Thus we see that the Scottish Church paid more
than double what was paid by Ireland, and a fifth
of the amount that was paid by England.

The transepts of St Giles, as they existed before
the 4 so-called repairs of 1829, afforded distinct
evidence of the gradual progress of the edifice.
Beyond the Preston aisle the roof differed from
the older portion, exhibiting undoubted evidence
of being the work of a subsequent time ; and from
its associations with the eminent men of other
days it is perhaps the most interesting portion of
the whole fabric. Here it was that Walter Chap-
man, of Ewirland, a burgess of Edinburgh, famous
as the introducer of the printing-press into Scotland,
and who was nobly patronised by the heroic king
who fell at Flodden, founded and endowed a
chaplaincy at the altar of St. John the Evangeu&t,
“in honour of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St
John the Apostle and Evangelist, and all the
saints, for the healthful estate and prosperity of
the most excellent lord the King of Scotland, and
of his most serene con son Margaret Queen of
Scotland, and of their children ; and also for the
health of my soul, and of Agnes Cockbume, my
present wife, and of the soul of Mariot Kerkettill,
my former spouse,'* &c.

“This charter,” says a historian, “is dated 1st
August, 1513, an era of peculiar interest. Scot-
land was then rejoicing in all the prosperity and
happiness consequent on the wise and beneficent
reign of James IV. Learning was visited with the
highest favour of the Court, and literature was
rapidly extending its influence under the zealous
co-operation of Dunbar, Douglas, Kennedy, and
others, with the royal master-printer. Only one
month thereafter Scotland lay at the mercy of her
southern rival Her king was slain ; the chief of
her nobles and warriors had perished on Flodden
Field, and adversity and ignorance again replaced
the advantages that had followed in the train of
the gallant James's rule. Thenceforth, the altars
of St Giles received few and rare additions to
their endowments.”

From the preface to “Gologras and Gawane % ”
we learn that in 1598 Walter Chapman the printer
founded a chaplaincy at the altar of Jesus Christ,
in St Giles, and endowed it with a tenement in the
Cowgate ; and there is good reason for bettering
that die pious old printer lies buried in the south
transept of * the church, dose by the apm wba*

t Giles'i Choick.1

REGENT MURRAY’S FUNGAL

the Regent Murray, the Regent Morton, and his
great rival, John Stewart Earl of Athole, are buried ;
and adjoining the aisle where the sorely mangled
remains of the great Marquis of Montrose were
so royally interred on the 7th of January, i66l

The Regent’s tomb, now fully restored, stands
on the west side of the south transept, and on
many accounts is an object of peculiar interest
Erected to the memory of one who played so con-
spicuous a part in one of the most momentous
period? of Scottish history, it is well calculated to
rouse many a stirring asso-
ciation. All readers of
history know how the Re-
gent fell under the bullet
of Bothwellhaugh, at Lin-
lithgow, in avenging the
wrongs inflicted on his
wife, the heiress of Wood-
houselee. As the “ Cadyow
Ballad ” has it—

41 ’Mid pennoned spears a stately
grove,

Pioud Murray’s plumage
floated high ,

Scarce could his trampling
charger move.

So close the minions crow-
ded nigh.

41 From the raised vizor’s shade,
his eye,

Dark rolling, glanced the
ranks along ;

And his steel truncheon waved
on high.

Seemed marshalling the iron
throng.

41 But yet his saddened brow
confessed,

A passing shade of doubt
and aue ;

Some fiend was whispering in
his breast.

Beware of injured Bothwellhaugh !

44 The death-shot parts — the charger springs—

Wild rises tumult's startling roar !

And Murray's plumy helmet rings —

Rings on the ground to rise no more ! ”

When his remains were committed to the tomb in
which they still lid, the thousands who crowded
the church were moved to tears by the burning
eloquence of Knox. “Vpoun the xiiij day of t he
moneth of Februar, 1570,* says the “Diurnal of
Oocwrents” 44 py lord Rcgentis corpis, being btocht
in hue bote be ney, W Stirling to Leith, quhnir k
ni keipit in Johne Waiidlaw his how, and there-
caty it to die Palace of Hd^mgdtoa* wes
aft Palace to the CoOcge Kitfc

m

JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST Cl LBS'S.
(Prom ike Scottish Antifuerimn Museum)

of Sanctgeill, in this maimer; that is to
William Kirkaldie of Grange, Knycht, raid \
said palace in dule ureid, bearing ane
quherin was contenit ane Reid Lyon j after him
followit Colvill of Cleishe, Maister (of the) ftcfus-*
hold to the said Regent, with ane quheftynlfca
contenit my lords regentis armeS and baget* who
Earls of Mar, Athole, Glencaim, the tafdft
Ruthven, Methven, and Lindsay, the Master of
Graham, and many other nobles, bore die body
through the church to the grave, where it M was
burnt in Sanct Anthonie's
ylcr On the front of the
restored tomb is the an-
cient brass plate, bearing
an inscription composed
by George Buchanan s —

44 laeobo Stovarto, Ah rmim CV
miif. Seeing P ron gi ;

Ftro, A.tata am r, iongt epio
mo. ab imiMMs,

Ovtms m
tnsu/us extmetOi
Car pifrt

moruns pesmt."

Opposite, on the north side
of the west transept; was
the tomb in which die Earl
of Athole, Chancellor of
Scotland, who died sud-
denly at Stirling, not with-
out suspicion of poison,
was interred with great
solemnity on the 4th of
July, 1579. A crost was
used on this occasion, and
a flambeaux were borne,
according to Calderwood,
the funeral probably oc-
curred at night ; these para-
phernalia led to die anal
of the General Assembly, and a riot

interference
ensued.

The portion of the church
these monuments was entered by a door adftitning
the Parliament Cloae, and, as it wai
44 the glide regent’s aisle,” a it
became a common place far
loungers Thus French Park — Queen Mary's
servant— in his
of King Henry, stated that k
which took pk*ce before that dasfc dead man m.
solved on, he one day P*ok hisnmntfe MiM
and y yrtt to ftvmt ssr (walk) in the ka0b
Prrhs li fy in enmaptmasa of fhn '

«Ul fat the

1

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

fSMMMGMh.

m -*.$** assigned in bills for the

«* A~»W, «M«.
of Jenny Geddes* famous onslaught
' ^Vfohf JkUfMft on the reader of the liturgy in
The erection of Edinburgh into an epis-
we in 1633, under Bishop William Forbes
> died dm same year), and the appointment of

In 1596 St Giles’s was the scene of a tumultuous
dispute between James VI. and the leaders of the
Church parry. The king was sitting in that pan
of it which the Reformers named the Tolbooth
Kirk, together with the Octavians, as they were
styled, a body of eight statesmen into whose hands
he had committed all his financial affairs and patron-
age. The disturbance from which the king felt

THE LANTERN AND TOWER dk SI. GILES’S CHURCH.

•St Giles's as the cathedral of the diocese, led — in himself to be in peril, arose from an address by Bal-
ks temporary restoration internally— to something canqual, a popular preacher, who called on the
like what it had been of old ; but ere the orders of Protestant barons and his other chance auditors to
Charles I, for the demolition of its hideous gal- meet the ministers in “ the little kiik,” where they,
leries and subdivisions could be carried out, all amidst great uproar, came to a resolution to urge
Scotland was in anas, and the entire system of upon James the necessity for changing his policy and
Church polity for which these changes were designed, dismissing his present coundilora. The progress
nad cdme to a violent and a terrible end. This of the deputation towards foe place where the
dwte#t vdte f < tefo s i^ king was to be found brought with it foe noisy

AdMmteh entity* kiy by the ruthless am- mob who had created the hnmdt, and when foe
tts^aod some ^ the* were toed as bold expresskms of the d^utatfon weteatetfaded

0m km * ** ** * frfoahOn m ^

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

the king became alarmed, On the north ride of the choir the monument of
Pfftbib Ae Tolbooth, amid shouts of the Napier femily forms a conspicuous and interest-
^%VSyODlwlf I" “Armour I Armour 1 " mg feature to passem-by. Ibis tomb— long called
I# deputation returned to the portion of by tradition that of the great inventor of logarithms
istbsaidly named the Little Kith, they found —is supposed to indicate the rite of St Salvator's
multitude listening to the harangue of a altar, to the chaplain of which Archibald Napier of
m named Michael Cranston, on the text of Merchiston, in 1499, “ mortified’ 1 an annual rent
1 and Mordecai." The auditors, on hearing of 20 merks out of a tenement near the church of
king had retired without any explanation, the Holy Trinity. The tomb is surmounted by the
tied forth, and with shouts of “ Bring out aims of the Napiers of Merchiston, and of Wright’s
:ed Hainan 1 ” endeavoured to batter down House, and bears the following inscription, showing
rs of the Tolbooth, from which 'James was plainly that it is a family burial-place : —

named Michael Cranston, on the text of
* Human and Mordecai.” The auditors, on hearing
> that the king had retired without any explanation,
now rushed forth, and with shouts of “ Bring out
the wicked Hainan 1 ” endeavoured to batter down
the doors of the Tolbooth, from which 'James was
- glad to make his escape to Holyrood, swearing he
would uproot Edinburgh, and salt its rite !

This disturbance, which Tytler details in hi?
History, was one which had no definite or decided
purpose— one of the few in Scottish annals where
there was a trended excitement without any dis-
tinct aim.

When James succeeded
to the crown of England,
in 1603, he attended ser-
vice in St. Giles's, and heard
a sermon by the Rev. Mr.

Hall, Upon the great mercy
of heaven in having thus
accomplished his peaceful
accession to a kingdom so
long hostile to his own,

Without stroke of sword
or shedding one drop of jenny ge

blood. He exhorted the

JENNY GBDDES* STOOL.

(From the Scottuk Antiquarian Museum.)

“ S. £. P. Pam. de Neperorum interius hie situm at”

The species of spire or lantern formed by groined
ribs of Stone, which forms the most remarkable
feature in the venerable church, seems to be pecu-
liar to Scotland, as it does not occur in ancient
times fattber south than
Newcastle ; but its date is
as recent as 1648, who it
was rebuilt, and closely
modelled on the ancient
one, which had become
ruinous and decayed.

Of the four bells which
hung in the tower in the
olden time, one which bore
the name of St. Mary was
taken down at the Refor-
)es* stool. mation, and (with the four

great brazen p.llars of the

monarch to show his gratitude by attention to high altar) was ordered to be cast into cannon
the cause of religion, and his care of the new for the town walls, instead of which they were sold
•objects committed to his charge. for jQ 220 . Maitland further records that two of

The king now fose, and addressed the people the remaining beHs were re-cast at Campvere m
front whom he was about to part in a very warm 1621 ; one of these was again re-cast at London in
and affectionate strain. He bade them a long 1846. 1

adieu with much tendpmess, promised to keep In 1585 the Town Council purchased the dock
them and their best interests in fond memory belonging to the abbey church of Lindores in
during his absence, “ and often to visit them and Fifeshire, and placed it in the tower of St Giles's,
communicate to them marks of his bounty when “previous to which time,” says Wilson, “the
hr foreign parts, as ample as any which he had citizens probably regulated time chiefly by the
been us eA to bestow when present with them. beHs for matins and vespers, and the other daily
A mixture of approbation and weeping," says services of the Roman Catholic Church."

Scott in his History, “followed this speech; and In 1681 we first find mention of the musical bells
foe good-nat ur ed king wept plentifully himself at in the spire, Fountainhall molds, with reference
taking lease of his native subjects." to the legacy left to the 6 fy by Thomas Moodie, the

tbe math tr ansep t of the church long bore the Council propose “to boy with it a peal of bell*
queer name of Haddo’s Hole, because a famous hang in St Giles’s steeple, toeing musically, and

U P uriMefr Sir John Gordon of Haddo — who de- to build a Tolbooth above the West Port of JSdm-

^d ed hfeca^ of egamrt <bc Covenanters, burgh, and put Thomas Hoodie's name and earn
msd ftm ll r thereon."

•h§$m for some thou bribed Us execu ti on at foe When foe precincts of St Giles's church were
idas. ' trnnlirienrt the edifice became rtiiiarirrl ab ou t

£01*1 OmU

THE OUSEL OF ST. E&fc

JNK.

j6 ,g f by somoxms mgd en booths bcm stuck up
^ ground it, chtefly betw*» the buSrmw, some
of which were irtttsQy cut away lor this ignoble
purpose, while the lower tracery of the windows
m destroyed by their lean-to roofs, just as we
may see still in the instance of many churches
in Belgium. These wretched edifices were called
the Kraraes, yet, as if to show that some reverence
«as still paid to the sanctity of the place, the
Towh Council decreed, u that no tradesman should
be admitted ‘ to these shops except bookbinders,
mortmakers (i>. watchmakers), jewellers, and grifl*
smiths.” “ Bookbinders,” saps* Robert
“ must be in this instance meant to signif)rbook-
sellers, the latter term being then unknown in
Scotland but within the memory .Of many still
living, these booths, which
were swept away in 1899,
were occupied by dealers
in toys, sweetstuff, old
clothes, and shoes. In the
centre of this narrow alley
the Earl of Errol, as Lord
High Constable of Scot-
land, used to sit on a chair
during the riding of the
Parliament, receiving the
members as they alighted.

At the entrance to these
krames there formerly ex-
isted a flight of steps, known
by the name of “Our lady’s
Step6, w from a statue of the
Virgin which once occupied
a Gothic niche in the north-
east angle of the church. Another account says
they were named from the infamous Lady March,
wife of the Earl of Arran, the profligate chancellor
of James VI., from whom the nine o’clock bell
was also named “ The Lady Bell,” as it was rung
an hour later to suit herself. An old gentlewoman
mentioned in the “ Traditions of Edinburgh,” who
died in 1802, was wont to own that she had, in
her youth, seen both die statue and die steps; but
it is extremely unlikely that the former would
escape the iconodksts of 1559, who left the church
almost a ruin. «

But time has accomplished a change that John
Knox and "Jenny Geddes” could little foresee I

;ef MtL

•JM

Sanction was given in the eady part of
by the municipal authorities for j

tuns, to be contacted in a npaeta ggd „
known to thebarbanua “JnpwanV'if It
the head of the reatonUxm commklae at*

Dr. William Chambers, the meB-kaou* JgJSSSt
and author. According to the plan mfSpi
it, the last of the temporary 'Wtitioni'wm ttbe*»-
moved, the rich-shaped pillars embedded tblMkte
be uncovered and restored,$e galleries sal pewe
to be sw«pt away, gnd the church to “FT its
old cruciform wpect “By these Qpendons^the
Montrose aisle will be uncovered, and ta w an
interesting historical object Provision in made
for the Knights of the Ttusile erecting- their Mata,
as is done by die Knights of the Garter in
St George's, Windsor, and
by the Knights Of It
Patrick in St Patrick's
Cathedral, Dublin. There
has. been no chapel fcr the
Knights of the TbMe
since the one in HolyWod,
now in ruins, ceased to he
used ; and the committee
ho|« that the knigbet nil
favourably consider the pm*
posal now being made, ac-
cording to which they may
have their stalk erected hi
the ancient cathedral of
the capital of Scotland.*
And the strrtns of the
organ now resound thnap
the church. Shade ef John
Knox, that St Giles’s should ever boat* a ’ kb* o'
whistles I”

The restoration, thus inaugurated, has readied •
degree of completeness which would have amply
satisfied the aspirations of William Chambers, had v
he lived to see the results of his unwearied and
devoted labours on behalf of the time-honoured
church. The building aa it now stands kali orna-
ment to the Scottish metropolis of which the
citizens do well to be wcordiigfr proud, but
they must not forget how much they owe to the
public spirit and enterprise cf the Provos t puM k her
whose name must always be —se ri ate d «Nk dm

CARVED CENTRE OROIN STONE OR ROSS.*
(Fnrn Outfit St. EM. St. CiMt.)

INTERIOR OF THE HIGH CHURCH, ST- GILES'S.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. GILES’S.

- — - ti J 0»Wi— Tht Clin ihotl Tumpilm The Gtm of Km — The City Ctam— T

othf^Thn Gsdduo—Thn Dyvours Stno—Tbu Lttckvn booth*- Th*

AuM JCMc 8tyit-Byi«'«

Dews the southern dope of the hill on which St
GSdft church Mud*, its buiymg-ground — covered
d» tmt% pcrrh ao c a , anterior to the little pariah
edttoa we hone described aa existing in the time of
df$ed to the line of the Co wgate, where

of the sixteenth century. In July, 1800, a idic of
dua chapel waa found near the head of Foneaiert
Wynd, in former days the weatem bound a ry of the
dmrehyant This relic— « curiously sculptured
poup-tik* a design from Botbeia’a « Dance of
Death," waa defined and hrpfcen by
Amid the amUtti, wbo hoogbt up the

gt Ottawa CtaiiOfwfc

THE CHURCHYARD.

conceit which appear among the sculpture at
goshn chapel So late as i6ao “ fitim Lennox
is elected chaplain of die chapeliy o£ the holy rood,
\jn the burgh kirk-yard of St Giles. 11 Hence it is
supposed that the nether kirk-yard remained m use
long after the upper had been abandoned as a
place of sepulture.

All this was holy ground in those days, for in
44 Keith’s Catalogue” we are told that near the
head of Bell’s Wynd (on the eastern side) there

that are extant, was writs* of «oU ]
formerly belonging to Geqlgs CriohtlBi i
Dunkeld, who held that see betWMfi'du
1527 and 1543, and was La# Sltptfj
Privy Seal under King James V.

Overlooked, then, by the great 1
of St Giles, and these minor 4
die first buiying-grawnd of IspiM

steep slope with its face to the sun. The. i
home of generations of cities, underwhatisi

ST GILES’S CHUICH, l8j8-

were a hospital and chapel known by the name
of the “Matson Dieu." “We know not,” says

Arnot, “at what time or by whom it was founded ,
but at die Reformation it shared the common
fate dr Popish establishments in this country. It
w«s converted into private property. This building
a still (1779) entise, and goes by the name of the
Clamshell Turnpike, from the figure of on cscalop
sheO cut in stone above the door.”

Fire and modem reform have dieted dim
changes hem since Amot smote. Newer buildings
occupy rite, site; but snB, immed i atel y above fee
that led of old to Mflt Wynd, a moaaas
sadop theSis menmry of
,m the eariiert tides of It

the pavement of a noisy street, “them sleep f»
great, the good, the peaceful and dm turbuhmf*
the faithful and the false, aU blent together in their
quaint old coffins and fl a nn el s hr oud s , with mousy
in their dead hands, mnl dome* erchahoss M
their breasts ; oM citiaena who wmambamd dm
tong-haired King David passing forth whh baskfag
hound and twanging hem on that Road flay »
harvest which so nearly coat him bis Hfej and Kg#

frLD AMP WEW EDfMBggfliL

tAiCkrc^

ere fee marched to storm

i

citizens who have fought feftheir
at Flodden, Pinkie, slid a hundred other
and there lies one whose name is still
in the land, and <*who never toured the
* of man” — John Knox. He expired at his old
, neat 1 the Nether Bow, on the 14th of No-
vember, 157a, in his sixty-seventh year, and his
body was attended to the grave by a great mul-
titude of people, including the chief of the nobles
and die Regent Morton, whose simple Uoge over
his grave is so well known. It cannolt but excite
surprise that no effort was made by the Scottish

the remains of the
ion, but some of that
the past which he mail-

people to preserve
great Reformer from
spirit of irreverence

oaavs of john knox.

7

caked thus recoiled upon himself, and posterity
knout not his exact resting-place. If the tradition
m en tio ned by Chambers, says Wilson, be correct, that
M hiibtu^)^aOewa^ afew feet from the front of the
old jppdgstal of King Charles's statue, the recent
in the position of the* latter must have
(da ora jt directly over his grave-— perhaps as strange
a monument to the great apostle of Presbyterianism
as fancy could devise 1** Be all this as it may,
there is dose by the statue a small stone let into
the pavement inscribed simply

41 1. K, 157a"

. An smdent oak pulpit, ofctagonal and panelled,
brought from St Gikps’s church, and said to have
boon the aitoe in which he was wont to preach, ia
Sttt preserved in toe Royal Institution on the

;€tose bf 9b Giles's church, where radii in, toe
math its, , sji e, s tood .toe ancient £roaa
' my by the

- - ' - 3 ®- ^ 1756. Scott,

1 to deplore its
been vainly

made go collect the fragments and reconstruct it
In 44 Mansion/' as the pot* has h : —

“ Dunedin’s cross, a pillared stone,

Rose on a turret octagon ;

But now is rued that monument,

Whence royal edicts rang,

And the voice of Scotland’s law went forth.

In glorious trumpet clang.

Oh, be his Wmb as lead to lead
Upon its dull destroyer’s head I—

A minstrel’s malison is said.”

A battlemented octagon tower, furnished with four
angular turrets* it was sixteen feet in diameter, and
fifteen feet high. From this rose the centre pillar,
also octagon, twenty feet in height, surmounted by
a beautiful Gothic capital, terminated by a crowned
unicorn. Calderwood tells us that prior to King
James’s visit to Scotland the old cross was taken
down from the place 5 where it had stood within
the memory of man, and the shaft transported
to the new one, by the aid of. certain marine*
from Leith. Rebuilt thus in -1617, nearly ou me
site of *n older cross, it was of a mixed style of
architecture, and in its reconstruction, with a better
taste than later years have shown, the chief orna-
ments of the ancient edifice had been preserved ;
the heads in basso-relievo, which surmounted
seven of the arches, have been referred by our
most eminent antiquaries to the remote period of
the Lower Empire. Four of those heads, which
were long preserved by Mr. Ross at Deanhaugh,
were procured by Sir Walter Scott, and are still
preserved at Abbotsford, together with the great
stone font or basin which flowed with wine on
holidays. The central pitt*£ long preserved at
Lord Somerville’s house. Drain, near Edinburgh,
now stands near the Napier tomb, within a railing,
on the north side of the choir of St Giles's, where
it was placed in i86fi. A crowned unicorn sur-
mounts it, bearing a ptnnon blazoned with a silver
St Andrew’s cross on one side, and on the other
the city crest— an anchor.

From the side of that ventrable shaft royal pro-
clamations, solendh denunciations of excommunica-
tion and outlawry, involving ruin and death, went
forth for ages, andntrange and terrible have been toe
sooies, toe cruelties, toe executions, and absurdities,
it has witnessed. From its battlements, by tradition*
mimic heralds of the unseen world cited the gallant
James and «U our Scottish chi valry to appear in
the dooafts of Pluto immediately before toe
march of toe army to Flodden, as reco rde d «t
greet length in toe.«£h^^
end rendered more pleerendy, yet Utoalfcr, into
JvtrraelqrScott^

IteCftyCM.)

EXECUTIONS AT THE CIT# 'CROSS.

« Then on ftt battlments (hay saw
A vision p aram g Nature** lew, ° *

Strange, wild, end dimly teen ;

Figures that seemed to rise and die,

Gibber and sign, advance and fly,

While nought confirmed could ear or eye
Dream of sound or mien.

Yet darkly did it seem a* there.

Heralds and pursuivants prepare.

With trumpet sound and blazon fair,

A summons to proclaim ;

But indistinct the pageant proud,

* As fancy forms of midnight cloud,

W hen flings the moon upon her shroud
A wavering tinge of flame ;

It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud 1
From midmost of the spectre croud,

The awful summons came!"

Then, according to Pitscottie, followed the ghastly
roll of all who were doomed to fall at Flodden, in-
cluding the name of Mr. Richard Lawson, who
heard it.

“ I appeal from that summons and sentence/*
he exclaimed, courageously, 41 and take me to the
mercy of God and Christ Jesus His Son.”

“Verily,” adds Pitscottie, “the author of this,
that caused wnte the manner of this summons, was
a landed gentleman, who was at that time twenty
years of age, and Was in the town at the time
of the said summons, and thereafter when the field
was stricken, he swore to me there was no man
escaped that was called in this summons, but that
man alone who made his protestation and appealed
from the said summons, but a U the lave perished in
the field with the king.”

Under the shadow of that cross have been trans-
acted many deeds of peal horror, more than we can
enumerate here— but a few may suffice. There, in
I 5 ^ 3 » Sir James Tarbat, a Roman Catholic priest,
was pilloried in his vestments, with a chalice bound
to his hands, and, as Knox has it, was served by the
mob with “ his Easter eggs,” till he was pelted to
death. There died Sir William Kirkaldy, hanged
* with his face to the sun” (as Knox curiously pre-
dicted before his own death), for the execution took
place at four in the afternoon, when the sun was in
the west (Calderwood) ; and there, m time to come,
died his enemy Morton. These died Montrose
and many of his cavalier comrades, amid every
ignominy that could be inflicted hpon them; and
the two Aigyles, fether and son. An incredible
number of real and imaginary c rimin a ls have ren-
dered up their three on that fetal spot, and among

the ora foam mterateif* of the former we may men-

thm GUeed^or “the' fed-famed lad,” whore reel

wild pranks cm the shores of Loch LottoeLa
brought to Edinburgh, were drawn backwa*
hprdle to the cross, on the syth of Jdiy, iff
there hanged — Giideroy and John Forbes ^
on a higher gallows than riiererU,aiHLfiirthenlw^^.
their heads and hands struck of£ to be agfafe to
the city gates. Giideroy, we need^sdw#^^
has obtained a high ballad There is * braa*

side of the time, containing a lament to him written
by his mistress, in rude verse" ^ot altogether without
some pathos ; one verse runs thus

u My love he mi as have a man
As ever Scotland bred.

Descended from a highland clan,

A catheran to ids trade.

No woman then or wOman-kind
Had ever greater joy.

Than we two when we lived alone,

I and my Giideroy !”

Here culprits underwent scourging, branding, oa*>
nailing, and nose-pinching, with tongue-boring find
other punishments deemed minor. As g l
of these exhibitions we shall take the
from the diary Nicoll verbatim*-*

“Last September, 165a. Twa Engliichet, far
drinking the King’s health, were takin end blind
at Edinburgh croc e, quhair either of theme lUMfit
thretty-nine quhipes on thair n&iked bakes and
shoulderis ; thairafter their lugs were nailHt SO the
gallows. The ane had his lug cutrit from the mitt
with a razor, the uther being also naillit to the gib-
bet had his mouth skobii, and hit tong beb* drawn
out the full length, was bound together bctarfat tm ’
sticks, hard togedder, with an skatfirie-thrid?fa^
space of half one hour thereby.” P nwiehmen ta el
this cruel kind were characteristic of fa\h3lg end
were not peculiar to the Scottish capital alow* »
In later and more peaceful times the <*gr mm
was the ’Change, the great resort of the eitisens for a
double purpose. They met there to disrate tbm
topics of the day and see their acq uain ta n ce^ with*
out the labour of forenoon calls down steep cl o ses
and up steeper turnpike stasis; and these g at h erin g * '
usually took place between the boors of oneandtwnu
And during the reigns of the two first Gtep ft
was customary at this place, as the very centra and
cynos ur e of die dty« for the magi s trates to Wt
the king's heakh on a stage, “loyalty be^ag* virion
which always becomes perafcrty psirafoti e — wfafe

k u tmder anv of wnakneSA*

The cram, the font er basin of arfainh

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

ttu OtrCfe*

, and also faithful to any duty en-
A stranger coming temporally to
Edinburgh got a caddie attached to his
^ to conduct him from one pan of ifm town
t, and to ran errands for him; hi Amt) to
wholly at his bidding. A caddie did literally
r everything of Edinburgh, even to that kind
of knowledge which we now expect only in a street
directory; and it was equally true that he could
hardly be asked to go anywhere, or upon any

It is difficult now to understand the gross per-
version Of taste and the barbarous of

all veneration that prevailed in the Scotland of the
eighteenth century, and how such a memorial as
the inoffensive cross of Edinburgh was doomed
to destruction ; but doomed it was, and on the
night before its demolition began there came a bac-
chanalian company, probably Jacobites, and with a
crown bowl of punch upon its battlements, solemnly
drank “ the dredgit of the auld mercat cross."

mission, that he would not go. On the other hand,
She stranger would probably be astonished to find
that)* in a fey hours, his caddie was acquainted with
wmy particular concerning himself, where he was
from, what waa his purpose in Edinburgh, his family
WAldiflSl t as tes , and dispositions. Of course for
tmf particle of eqradal floating about Edinburgh
Oe caddie was a iqady book of reference. Wesomc-
0 drn bender bow our ancestors did without news-
ga piW i We do not reflect on the living which of
IMMedkldh then e ri stn d j the privileged beggar for
flWflIHMNMk the egbHes.*
h Gwd, the

*

On one side of the cross there stood, of old,
the Dyvours stane, whereon might be seen seated
a row of those unfortunates, who, for misfortune
or roguery, were, by act of the Council, compelled
to appear each market day at noon in the bank-
rupt’s garb — in a yellow bonnet and coat, one half
yellow and the other brown, under pain of three
months’ imprisonment The origin of this singular
mode of protecting public credit was an Act of
Sederunt qf the Court of Session in 1604, wherein
the seat is dmcribed as M aae pifleryef hewn stone,
r to the mercat once,” and from to ail till
h w after dinner wmtifo time for die Pywaara

cf 5 pn*

The

THE AULD'KIRK STYLE.

tnresque an<J heavily-eaved buildings^ stood in the
thoroughfare of the High Street, parallel to St
Giles’s church, from which they were separated
ty a close and gloomy lane for foot passengers
alone, and the appellation was shared by the
opposite portion of the main street itself. This
singular obstruction, for such it was, existed from

among whom we may mention the weH4cnowa i
of Messrs. McLaren and So na.

It was pierced m the middle by a pasta
the Auld Kirk Style, which led to the old nsrth
door of St Giles’s, and there it was that fc t jig#
the Lairds of Lochmvar and Drumlamtg ■hijrljr
Thomas MacLellan of Bombie (anoesto r of the

CRBBCH*S LAND. (Fr*m mm Rmgrmmmg imhu*' Fmgtitw Pktm ")

thercign of James III. till 1817, and the name k
supposed to have been conferred on the shops
in that situation as being clou booths, to dis t ing uish
them from the open ones, which then lined the great
street on both sides, hsdbm signifying close, thus
implying & certain superiority to the ancient traders
in bbothw; and it was considered remarkable
that amid afithe changes of the old town there
is stffi m this locality an unusual proporti o n of

Lords Kirkcudbright), with whom they were at
feud— an act for winch neither of them was ewer
questioned or puiudiod* /

Prior to the year 1S11 there irateottncte^Ml
in the Lnckeobootte too lofty hariwe ****

naitemS’ lT M* *to» *f

Coetee, u (Mate now com rf by tho

new EdMoqh. Hen w liillp m. W#

» ntttt tete bite ter toft* to J *to w

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

pi*

(Vl^bot no memories of him now'rematn,
' L |«*6 the alley called Byres' Close, and his tomb
west wall of die Greyfriars’ churchyard, the
on which, though nearly obliterated,

> Wk us that he was treasurer, bailie, and dean
gf guild of Edinbuigh, and died in 1629, in his
gktieth year.

The fourth floor of the tall Byres’ Lodging was
occupied in succession by die Lords Coupar and
Lindores, by Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, and
Anally by Lord Coalstoun, father of Christian Brown,
Countess of the Earl of Dalhousie, a general who
"distinguished himself at Waterloo and elsewhere.
Before removing to a more spacious mansion on
the Castle Hill, Lord Coalstoun lived here in 1757,
and during that time an amusing accident occurred
to him, which has been the origin of more than one
excellent caricature.

“ It was at that time the custom,” says the
gossipy author of “Traditions of Edinburgh,”
“ for advocates, and no less than judges, to dress

awe of the senator below— die half mirth, half
terror of the girls above, together with the fierce
relentless energy on die part of puss between
formed altogether a scene to which language could
not easily do justice. It was a joke soon explained
and pardoned, but the perpetrators did afterwards
get many injunctions from their parents, never again
to fish over the window, with such a bait, for
honest men's wigs.”

At the east end of the Luckenbooths, and facing
the line of the High Street, commanding not only
a view of that stately and stirring thoroughfare,
but also the picturesque vista of the Canongate
and far beyond it, Aberlady Bay, Gosford House,
and the hills of East Lothian, towered “ Creech's
Land ” — as the tenement was named, according to
the old Scottish custom — long the peculiar haunt
of the literati during the last century. In the first
flat had been the shop of Allan Ramsay, where in
1725 he established the first circulating library ever
known in Scotland; and for the Mercury's Head,

themselves in gown, wig, and cravat, at their own
houses, and to walk in a sort of state, with. their
cocked hats in their hands, to the Parliament
House. They usually breakfasted early, and
when dressed would occasionally lean over their
parlour windows for a few minutes, before St.
Giles's bell sounded a quarter to nine, enjoying the
looming air, and perhaps discussing the news of
the day, or the Convivialities of the preceding
evening, with a neighbouring advocate on the
opposite side of the alley. It so happened that
one morning, while Lord Coalstoun was preparing
to enjoy his matutinal treat, two girls who lived on the
second floor above were amusing themselves with
a kitten, which they had swung over the window
»h| y a cord tied round its middle, and hoisted for
some time up and down, till the creature was
getting desperate with its exertions. In this crisis
his lordship popped "his head out of the window,
direcdy below that from which the kitten swung,
little suspecting, good easy man, what a danger
impended* when down came the exasperated
animal in full career upon his senatorial wig.
No sooner did the girls perceive what sort of
landing-place their kitten had found, than in their
terror and surprise, they began to draw it up ; but
this measure was now too late, for along with the
animal up also came the judge's wig, fixed fall in
its claws 1 His lordship’s surprise on

finding his wig lifted off his head was much
incmasd when, on looking tip, he perceived it
to mgr without any means

otoMk to Me, by etoch to motio n s mi ght be
for; The M tom s hmcn t,thc dm& the

which had been the sign of his first shop opposite
Niddry’s Wynd; he now substituted the heads of
Drummond of Hawthomden and Ben Jonson.
Of this establishment Wodrow writes : — “ Profane-
ness is come to a great height ! all the villainous,
profane, and obscene books of plays printed at
London by Curie and others, are got down from
London by Allan Ramsay, and let out for an easy
price to young boys, servant women of the better
sort, and gentlemen, and vice and obscenity dread-
fully propagated.”

It was the library thus stigmatised by sour old
Wodrow, that, according to his own statement, Sir
Walter Scott read with such avidity in his younger
| years. The collection latterly contained upwards
of 30,000 volumes, as is stated by a note in “ Kay's
Portraits.”

In 1748, says Kincaid, a very remarkable and
lawless attempt was made by the united London
booksellers and stationers to curb the increase of
literature in Edinburgh ! They had conceived an
idea, which they wished passed into law : “ That
authors or their assignees had a perpetual exclusive
right to their works ; and if these could not be
known, the right was in the person who first pub
fished the book, whatever manner of way they
became possessed of it”

The first step was taken in 1 748— twenty-three
years after Ramsay started his library — when an
action appeared before the Court of Session against
certain booksellers in Edinburgh and Glasgow,
which was decreed against the plaintiffa.* Ten

* «4 i

n* Lnckcnb oda-3 ALLAN RAMSAY’S SHofc

~~~~ ~ " " «" 1 'Ml I I .«*

years after, a second plan was concerted in England, Amot for a mondr ; fishwomen crying their
by a cozenage trial, which might be adduced as a haddies from Newhaven ; whimsicais and MflNfeb
precedent The court thought proper to take the each with his or her crowd of tormentors ;

'Opinion of the twelve judges in England, who men, with their bags ; Town Guardsmen with thfil'
permitted the matter to drop without giving any; antique Lochaber axes; barbers with their km*'
but a third attempt was made to restrain a certain dressing materials, and so forth.” Added to mSe
Scotsman from trading as a bookseller in London, might be the blue-bonneted shepherd in hb pay
For twelve years this man was harassed by sue- plaid; the wandering piper; the kilted drover,
cessive injunctions in Chancery, for printing books armed to the teeth, as was then the fashion ; and
which, were not protected by the 8th of Queen the passing sedan, with liveried bearers.

Anne, cap. 19, and the Court of Queen’s Bench Johnson, in his “ Lives,” makes no reference to
decided against the Scotsman (Miller v. Taykh), the Scottish visit of Gay, who died in 1732, tout
and then the London trade applied once merely says that for his monetary hardships he re*

Court of Session to have it made law in Scotland, ceived a recompense 11 in the affectionate attention
This prosecution was brought by Hinton, a book- of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, into
seller, against the well-known Alexander Donaldson, whose house he was taken, and with whom he
then in London, to restrain him from publishing passed the remaining part of his life.”

Stackhouse’s “ History of the Bible.” He was sub- Ramsay gave up his shop and library in 175s,
jected to great annoyance, yet he supported him- transferring them to his successor, who opened an
self against nearly the entire trade in London, and establishment below with an entrance direct from
obtained a decree which was of the greatest im- the street. This was Mr. James MacEwao, from
portance to the booksellers in Scotland. whom the business passed into the hands of Mr.

Ramsay’s shop became the rendezvous of all Alexander Kincaid, an eminent publisher in hit
the wits of the day. Gay, the poet, who was quite time, who took a great lead in civic affairs, and
installed in the household of the Duchess of died in office as Lord Provost of Edinburgh on
Queensberry— the witty daughter of the Earl of the 21st of January, 1777. Escorted by the
Clarendon and Rochester — accompanied his fair trained bands, and every community in the city,
patroness to Edinburgh, and resided for some time and preceded by “ the City Guard in funeral order,
in Queensberry House in the Canongate. He was the officers’ scarfs covered with crape, the drums
a frequent lounger at the shop of Ramsay, and is with black cloth, beating a dead inarch,” his
said to have derived great amusement from the funeral, as it issued into the High Street, was one
anecdotes the latter gave of the leading citizens, of the finest pageants witnessed in Edinbuigh
as they assembled at the cross, where from his since the Union. During his time the old bookr
windows they could be seen daily with powdered seller’s shop acquired an additional interest (om
wigs, ruffles, and rapiers. The late William Tytler, being the daily lounge of Smollett, who was residing
of Woodhouselee, who had frequently seen Gay with his sister in the Canongate in 1 77 ^* *Aus it
there, described him as “a pleasant little man in is that he tells us, in “ Humphry Clinker,” that
a tye-wig and, according to the Scots Magazine “ all the people of business in Edinburgh, and
for i8oj, he recollected overhearing him request even the genteel company, may be seen standing
Ramsay to explain many Scottish words . and in crowds every day, from one to two in the after*
national customs, that he might relate them to noon, in the open street, at a place where formerly
Pope, who was already a great admirer of “ The stood a market cross, a curious piece of Gothic
Gentle Shepherd.” architecture, still to be seen in Lord Somerville’s

How picturesque is the grouping in the follow- garden in this neighbourhood.”
ing para gra ph, by one who has passed away, of The attractions of the old shop increased when
the crowd then visible from the shop of Allan it passed with the business into the hands of the
Ramsay Gentlem e n and ladies paraded along celebrated William Creech, son of the minister of
in dw r stately attire of the period ; tradesmen Newbs ttlc . Educated at the g y c mm a iy sc h ool of
chatted in groups, often bareheaded, at their shop Dalkeith and the University of Edinburgh, he had
doors ; caddies whisked about bearing messages or many mental endowments, an itnhfaitfHe ted
attending to the affairs of strangers ; children filled of amusing ane c dote great coaidltteL t
the kennel with their noisy sports. Add to this powers, which thro ugh life cau s e d Mm to t*
the cord n royrid men from Gilmerton bawling coals co urted by the most eminent min of te teftjb’
or yellow sand, and spending as much breath in a and Ml smffing hoc, Ms wsfrpowdsrsd MiM
minute as wonkMwe served poor asthmatic Bugs cuiatef Mad mat, with mt» teed** wm*i«ftf ;

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ..

. ..I — __

NfWbMl alter tee had passed away ; but he came from his establishment He published the
6»tMrt|rt penurious habits, with a miserly works of Cullen, Gregory, Adam Smith, Boms,
ip yj te r Money, which sot only precluded all Dugald Stewart, Henry Mackenzie, Blau, Beatt ie,
MptelteM* to lie deserving, but actually marred Campbell (the opponent of Hume), Lords Wood.
Writer hottest discharge of business transactions, houselee and Kames, and by the last-named he
I iV)ft he entered into partnership with Mr. was particularly regarded with esteem and friend.
ItoaU, who left the busmess two years after, and ship ; and it was on the occasion of his having gone

S'jl'.;'

w

^4

m

\ x,

■Jkjn

I T.Vvi.v I

WILLIAM C&EICH. lit Ptrirmt b Sir Htnry Rmiitm )

lie whole devolving upon Mr. Creech, he con- 1 to London for some time in 1787 that Bums wrote
ducted it for forty-four years with singular enter- his well-known poem of “Willie’s Awa:*—

priie and success. Bor all that time his quaint shop
at fob east-end of foe Luckenboothi was the resort
of foie daw, foe pro fe ssors, and also all public
art nidphilt men in the Scottish metropolis; and
IfcVfoihfoifoWMttlirt It permanent literary lounge,
whit hW s fo foe fr lydttnsifocf ^Creech’s Levee."
*nS(iir frte or foe perfod vm

“ Oh, WQBe was a wkty wight,

And had o’ thing! an* aneo alight.
Arid Radik aye he keaptt tight,
Aad brigand taaw 1
fou new thqrV farek for Kha a «|
Wiliie’aawa 1“

' foe Uftfoe Offoe period mentianad We have already refined to foe dub to aft**
foOM^WHMfofolit«e<mdffo«tteee originated foe Mktfr art Itmfir. n*»

The Lockanbooritll

WILLIAM CREECH.

periodicals were issued by Creech * and the first
number of the former, when it appeared on Satur-
day, 23rd of January, 1779, created quite a sensa-
tion among the "blue-stocking” coteries of the
city.

In “Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,” “Mr. Creech,
then prince of the Edinburgh trade,” is rather
dubiously written of “This bibliopole was a
very indifferent master of his trade, and wanted
entirely the wit to take due advantage of the goods
the gods provided. He was himself a great litei*uy
character, and he was always a great mpn iliVW
magistracy of the city ; and perhaps he wdSjd Jan.
thought it beneath him to be a mere ordinary money-
making bookseller. Not that he had any aversion
to money-making; on the contrary, he w^ pro-
digiously fond of money, and carried his love of it
in many things to a ridiculous extent But he had
been trained in all the timid prejudices of the old
Edinburgh school of booksellers ; and not daring
to make money in a bold and magnificent way,
neither did he dare to run the risk of losing any
part of what he had made. Had he possessed
either the shrewdness or the spirit of some of his
successors, there is no question he might have set
on foot a fine race of rivalry among the literary
men about him — a race of which the ultimate
gams would undoubtedly have been greatest to
himself. .... He never had the sense to
perceive that his true game lay in making high
sweepstakes, and the consequence was that nobody
would take the trouble either of training or running
for his courses.”

The successors referred to are evidently Con-
stable and the Blackwoods, as the writer continues
thus: —

"What a singular contrast do m the presen|c#i%‘
of Edinburgh in regard to these mittrn
when compared to what I have been endem«t|
to describe as existing in the days of the Cteuehae 1
Instead of Scottish authors sending their works to
be published by London booksellers, tMM is
nothing more common now-a-days than tdhtjpf ot
English authors sending down their books to Edin-
burgh to be published in a city than which Mem-
phis or Palmyra would scarcely have appeared a
more absurd place of publication to any English
author thirty years ago.” • ^

Creech died unmarried on the 14th of Jamuy,
1815, in his seventieth year, only two years befo re
I the interesting old Land which bore his name for
nearly half a century was demolished ; but a view
of it is attached to his “ Fugitive Pieces,” which
he published in 1791. These were essays and
sketches of character and manners in Edinbuvgh,
which he had occasionally contributed to the news-
papers.

The laigh-shop of Creech's Land was last occu-
pied by the Messrs. Hutchison, extensive tmdas,
who, in the bad state of the copper coinage, when
the halfpennies of George III. would not pass
current in Scotland, produced a coinage of Edin-
burgh halfpennies in 1791 that were long univer-
sally received. On one side were the city arms
and crest, boldly struck, surrounded by thistles,
with the legend, Edinburgh Halfpenny; on the
other, St. Andrew with his cross, and the national
motto, Nemo me impune laeessit , which is freely
and spiritedly rendered, “Ye dturaa meddle wF t
me.” Since then they have gradually disappeared,
and now ore only to be found in nu mism a tic col*
lections.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

She of the Parliament Houie-The Pariiamant Hall-Itt foe Eoof-Pro| Eiymel Aytt «T Old-F
-The Great South Wmdow-The Side Window. -Scot. Prmmmaf War-Gam) Hank Feated-A J
PtriJnaaet-The Uabn-lM difo ESacta and tthuMte good Rs aal n Trial

The Viva of 171

No building in Edinburgh possesses perhaps more
interest historically than the Parliament House,
and yet its antiquity is not great, as it was finished
only in 1639 for the meetings of the Estates, and
was used for that purpose exclusively till the Union
in 1707.

Previous to its taqtion in St Giles's churchyard*
the na tion al Psrtiatnents, the Courts of Justice,
end the Town Council of Edinbuigh* held their
ihHheeidTolhood^endthe

- Trial efC

of such assemblies taking place constantly hi ha
vicinity must have led to the g radu a l i bandonawf
of the old churchyard of St Gilo’s a plans of
sepulture, tot when die r eediest access to the toi*
booth was up the steep dope from dm chaps!
the holy rood in the Covgste, dssOflf See feritS*
nd old tousbskOM^ an d the IharihlpMli
lo unge a / 1 a rt t fr pw f fr jfri

of the ittonsei «*

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

> of Ac place must have been
« Queen Mary granted the gardens of
monastery to the citizens in the
to be used as a cemetery, and from
r^llt^adod Ac old burial-place seems to have

■ W forsaken, until the neglected sepul-

■ «bm of the dead were at length paved over, and
yjftfc^idtiaens forgot that their Exchange was built
V ; OVer their fathers’ graves.' 1 Yet tfithin six years
* after Queen Mary's grant, Knox was interred in

the old burial-ground. "Before the generation
had passed away that witnessed and joined in his
'funeral service,” says the author of “ Memorials of
Edinburgh," "the churchyard in which they laid
him had been converted into a public thoroughfare 1
We fear this want of veneration must be regarded
as a national characteristic which Knox assisted
to call into existence, and to which we owe much
of the reckless demolition of those time-honoured
monuments of the past which it is now thought a
weakness to deplore."

As a churchyard in name it last figures in 1596
as the scene of a tumult in which John Earl of
Mar, John Bothwell, Lord Holyroodhouse, the
Lord Lindsay, and others, met in their armour,
and occasioned some trouble ere they could be
pacified. It was the scene of all manner of rows,
when club-law prevailed ; where exasperated liti-
gants, sick of "die law's delays,” ended the matter
by appeal to sword and dagger ; and craftsmen and
apprentices quarrelled with the bailies and deacons.
It has been traditionally said that many of the
tombstones were removed to the Greyfriars’ church
yard ; if such was the case no inscriptions remain
to prove this.

The Parliament .Hall, which was finished in
1639, at the expense of the citizens, costing
1,600 of the money of that, time, occupies a
considerable portion of the old churchyard, and
possesses a kind of 'simple grandeur belonging
to an anterior age. Its noblest feature is the roof,
sixty feet in height, which rests on ornamental
brackets cpnskting of boldly sculptured heads,
and is fornted of dark oak tie-and-hammer beams
with cross braces, producing a general effect sug-
gestive of the date of Westminster, or of Crosby,

’ Halt Modern corridors that branch out from it
arerahatmony with the old hall, and lead to the
, various court rooms and the extensive libraries of
4 he Jftaatoy trf Advocates and the Society of
Wrijkra ta^Ae Signfet The hall measures its feet
in Tii§tiiJby 49 hi breadih, and was hvmg of old
portntit s of (fee kings of Scotland,
m ** *r Godfrey Knetifcc. The*. were be-.
x 707 vV^eenAnnc,o&theEtrtofM«v

and are now said to be among the miscellaneous
collections at Holyrood. Begun in 1632, the hall
with its adjacent buildings took seven years to
erect; but subsequently the external portions of
the edifice were almost totally renewed. Howell,
in his " Familiar Letters," writing from Edinburgh
in 1639, says, "there is a fair Parliament House
built here lately," and regretting that Charles I. did
not inaugurate it in person, he adds that "they
did ill who advised him otherwise." The time
had come when old Scottish raids were nearly past,
and when revolutions had their first impulse, not
in the battle-field, but in deliberative assemblies;
thus the Parliament that transferred its meetings
from the old Tolbooth to the new House in 1639
had ap vote "the sinews of war" for an army
against England, under Sir Alexander Leslie, and
was no less unprecedented in its constitution and
powers than the place in which it assembled was a
new edifice. Outside of a wooden partition in the
hall was an oak pulpit, where a sermon was preached
at the opening of Parliament ; and behind was a
small gallery, where the public heard the debates
of the House.

To thousands who never saw or could have
seen it the external aspect of the old Parliament
House has been rendered familiar by Gordon’s
engravings, and more particularly by the view of it
on the bank notes of Sir William Forbes and Co.
Tradition names Inigo Jones as the architect, but
of this there is not a vestige of proof. It was
highly picturesque, and possessed an individuality
that should have preserved it from the iconoclastic
"improvers” of 1829. “There was a quaint
stateliness about its irregular pinnacles and towers,”
we are told, “and the rude elaborateness of its
decorations, that seemed to link it with the courtiers
of Holyrood in the times of the Charleses, and its
last gala days under the Duke of York's vice-
regency. Nothing can possibly be conceived more
meaningless and utterly absurd than the thing that
superseded it ” — a square of semi-classic buildings,
supported by a narrow arcade, and surmounted by
stone sphinxes.

Above the old main entrance, which faced the
east, and is now completely blocked up and hid-
den, were the royal arms of Scotland, beautifully
sculptured, supported on the right by Mercy bold*
ing a crown wreathed with laurel, and on the
left by Justice, with a palm branch and balance,
with the inscription, Sta*t Au fdida rqpa, W
underneath the national rains, the motto, Om
ipcamm. uver toe imaiier ooorway, wmen
the present .ecu, to tbe tefty lobby of thc H tw e,
the tw tf the city, "

p^entHowa.1

THE GREA*

obelisks, with the motto Dominus custodit vdroitum
nostrum. The destruction of all this was utterly

unwarrantable.

The tapestries with which the hall was hung
were all removed about the end of the last century,
and now its pictures, statues, and decorations of
Scotland’s elder and latter days replace them.

Of the statues of the distinguished Scottish
statesmen and lawyers, the most noticeable are a
coloSjsal one of Henry first Viscount Melville in
his robes as k peer, by Chantrey ; on his left of Lord
Cockbum, by Brodie ; Duncan Forbes of Cullp^il
in his judicial costume as President of tW
by Roubiliac (a fine example) ; the Lord President
Boyle, and Lord Jeffrey, by Steel ; the Lord Pre-
sident Blair (son of the author of “ The Grave”),
by Chantrey.

On the opposite or eastern side of the hall
(which stands north and south) is the statue
of Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Chief Baron
of the Scottish Exchequer, also by Chantrey ;
portraits, many of them of considerable antiquity,
some by Jameson, a Scottish painter who studied
under Rubens at Antwerp. But the most remark-
able among the modem portraits are those of
Lord Brougham, by Sir Daniel Macnee, P.R.S.A. ;
Lord Colonsay, formerly President of the Court,
and the Lord Justice-Clerk Hope, both by the
same artist. There are also two very fine portiaits
of Lord Abercrombie and Professor Bell, by Sir
Henry Raeburn.

Light is given to this interesting hall by four
windows on the side, and the great window on the
south. It is of stained glass, and truly magnificent.
It was erected in 1868 at a cost of £2, 000, and
was the work of two German artists, having been
designed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, and executed
by the Chevalier Ainmiiller of Munich. It repre-
sents the inauguration of the College of J ustice, or
the Supreme Court of Scotland, by King James V.,
in 1532. The opening of the court is supposed by
the artist to have been the occasion of a grand
state ceremonial, and the moment chosen for
representation is that in which the young king,
surrounded by his nobles and great officers
of state, is depicted in the act of presenting
the charter of institution and of confirmation by
Pope Clement VII. to Alexander Mylne, Abbot
of Cambuskennetb, the first Lord President, who
kneels before him to receive it, surrounded by the
other judges in their robes, while the then Lord
^Bnfrllw of Scotland, Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop
of Glasgow,' and afterwards of St Andrews, with
upnrised band invokes a blessing on die act
In 1*70 die four side windows 00 the wot of the

■ WINDOW.

7 - « ■' mu t , ;„h

hall were filled in with stained glass of a hy— ggh
character, under the superintendence of
Sir George Harvey, president of the Royal fofH lh
Academy. Each window is twenty feet high
by nine wide, divided by a central multion, the
tracery between being occupied by the agnorial
bearings and crests of the various Lord "Jdltice-
Clerks, the great legal writers of the Patttty of
Advocates, those of the Deans of Faculty, and the
Lords Advocate.

This old hall has been the scene of many a
great event and many a .strange debate, and most
of die proceedings that fx>k place here belong
to the history of the countiy ; for with the excep-
tion of the Castle and the ancient portion of Holy
rood, no edifice in the city is so rich in historic
memories.

Beneath the old roof consecrated to these, says
one of its latest chroniclers, “ the first great move*
ments of the Civil War took place, and the succes-
sive steps in that eventful crisis were debated
with a zeal commensurate to the important results
involved in them. Here Montrose united with
Rothes, Lindsay, Loudon, and others of the
covenanting leaders, in maturing the bold measures
that formed the basis of our national liberties ; and
within the same hall, only a few years later, he sat
with the calmness of despair, to receive from the
lips of his old compatriot, Loudon, the barbarous
sentence, which was executed with such savage
rigour.” v

After his victory at Dunbar, some of Cromwell's
troopers in their falling bands, buff coats, and sled
morions, spent their time alternately in preaching to
the people in the Parliament Hall and guarding ft
number of Scottish prisoners of war wht r— u con-
fined in “ the laigh Parliament House ” below it
On the z 7th of May, 1654, some of these contrived
to cut a hole in the floor of the great hall, and all
effected their escape save two; but when pnaK
was established between Cromwell and the Scots,
and the Courts of Law resumed their sitting*
the hall was restored to somewhat of its legitimate
uses, and there, in 1655, the leaders of the Com*
monwealth, including General Monk, wise fa— tyd
with a lavish hospitality.

In 1660, under the autpioes of the —me re-
publican general, came to pa— “die glorious
Restoration, 0 when the magistrates hyd a b a nquet
at the cross, and gave £1^000 sterling to the Hag;
and his brother, the Duke of Albany and York* who

same hall with bis Prince— MasydfEdu and bin
daughter, die fame Queen Am*e,«eCT Pet^h* it
the high-boin ^ biautifiil in ScothuriL dhj^dfftk

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

■the latter, when the insane
, began in a cruel and retribu-
if&tmlht same place where he had been
l the royal duke was compelled to
rfe try by torture, with the iron boot and
, the passively heroic and high-spirited
of that Covenant which the king had
. brofeeh^while one of Scotland’s most able lawyers,

■ Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, acted his

of King's Advocate with such unpitying

enemies without form of trial, and hundreds of
less note courageously endured the fury of their
persecutors!”

Lord Fountainhall gives . us one scene acted in
this chamber, which will suffice as an illustration,
and so powerfully shows the spirit of the time
that we are tempted to quote it at length. It
refers to the trial or examination of a man named
Gamock and five other Covenanters on the 7 th of
October, 1681 : —

THE OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE, {facsimile i/GfxUn c/RothUmay'x View.)

seal as to gain him the abhorrence of the people, “ The King's Advocate being in Angus, sent
among whom he is still remembered as the “Bluidy over a deputation to me to pursue ; but God so
Mackenzie.** ordered it that I was freed, and Sir William Purves

Hie rooms below the Parliament Hall, which eased me of the office. In fortification of what
are still dark— one being always lighted with gas, they said before the Duke and Council, they led
the other dimly and surrounded by a gallery— were the clerks and macers as witnesses, who deponed
the place* where die Privy Council met, and torture that they uttered those or the like words: 4 They
MWg Vbi, too often, almost daily at one time declined the king, denied him to, be their lawful
‘ Though long dedicated now u to the calm seclusion sovereign, -and called him a tyrant and covenant-
of&em iy study , they are the same that witnessed breaker/ And FOnnan bad a knife with jh**
life' smbfe* .gfehnsfealfe^ and despairing, alike posie graven on it— This is to cut th* tkr*m cf
yaritate «t defect of tjyati, <* Subjected to tyrants; and said 4 tf die king be a tyrant, why
ffljjliranir '"^ nrnril * Then* Guftrie and*Aigyle not also cut his throat, axid if they were ri^teou*
fes^hwibus aentoftoe of their personal Judges fey would hare the f n— oft wsfesM

syhuu**(U*

like Buchanan’s motto borrowed fcpt the great
Emperor Trajan, Prs me, sin msfar, in me.'
Garnock having at a Committee of Council railed
^ General DalyeU, calling him (with reference to
his service in Russia) a Muscovia beast who used
to roast men, the general in a passion struck him
with the pommel of his shable on the face till the
bkxJd sprung. Garnock gave in a protestation
signed with his oWn hand, calling them ‘all bloody
murderers and papists, and charging all the Parlia-

Of which was uxordii^ ^ a pf

obstinately without acknovdedgbg
retracting their errors, revfluHttand ooniiinxi^S^p
judges and all that differed tom mm-
bodies were stolen up by some of their pj^g
under the gibbet, and re-buried in ihe.iiufiH
yird.” *jj

To understand die courage of the man
such a {dace would defy the lerrible old ci
the Greys — whose ghost is at this day supposed’ to

MILIAStNT HOUSE. (Am tkr Vim hi Awmti " Hi timy #/ I fa fc wfc l

menten to reverse the wicked laws they had made*
and that Popish test they had been taking, and
to put away that sinful man (the duke) or else the
judgments of God were ready to break upon the
land. Lapsley Was wiser than the other five, for
he owned the king; so far as he owned the
4 Covenant which he swore at his coronation at
Soane.'* Lapsley was sent in fetters to the Thieves*
Role, but the other five were found guilty by jury
of being present aft a field conve n ticle , “and
osudamned to be hanged at the Galloarlee, taunt
‘ M h fl a w p h 4* fefth, « the roth of October ;
-■m Mktatiro be stock off and act upon pricks

haunt his house of Bmas-we must keep in wriai*
die superstition of die time, which led the people

to believe him bullet-proof; that if he

hole was homed in the earth, tod thatwatcr.tt
pouted mto lus Jadthoott^rara at
beat 1

with it had a now escape in the 1
of 170a It brake ora to l rad <
to bit Jobs Badua’% urar
« ui^t to Fchnmyi

to/ PnHniirai 4

U UNUOUM
to tout

•>raM,raNptra.«r,

OLD AND NEW EBfNBUlHSH.

one stone

House very hardly escspt,”
register* confounded ; data, (
pp* processes, in such a confusion, that
officers of state are just now met in
in order to adjourning of the
' b j reason of the dissofder. Few people
, if any at all ; but there was neither heart
i left amongst them for saveing from the
nor a drop of water in the cisterns ; 20,000
hands flitting their trash they knew ndt wher, and
^hardly 20 at work ; these babells of ten and four-
teen story high, are down to the ground, and
their fall very terrible. Many rueful spectacles,
such as Crossrig, naked, with a child under his
oxter, hopping for his lyffe; the Fish Mercate,
ahd all from the Cowgate to Pett-streets Close,
burnt ; the Exchange, vaults and coal-cellars under
the Parliament Close, are still burning.”

Many of die houses that were burned on this
occasion were fourteen storeys in height, seven of
which were below the level of the Close on the
south rifle.. These houses had been built about
twenty years before, by Thomas Robertson, brewer,
a thriving citizen, whose tomb in the Greyfriars*
Churchyard had an inscription, given in Mon-
te$l£i v ft Theatre of Mortality, describing him as
* remarkable for piety towanis God, loyalty to his
kihg^ and love to his country.” He had given the
Covenant out of his hand to be burned at the Cross
in on the Restoration ; and now it was re-
membered exultingly “ that God in his providence
had sent a burning among his lands.”

But Robertson was beyond the reach of earthly
retribution, as his tqmb bears that he died on the
September, 1686, in the 63rd year of his
age, with the addendum, Vivit post funera virtu* —
“ Virtue survives the gravp.” .

Before we come to record the great national
tragedy which the Parliament House witnessed in
s?07--fbr a tragedy it was then deemed by the
Scottish people — it may be interesting to describe
the yearly ^ceremony, called 11 the Riding of the
in state, from die Palace to the Hall,
<aa described by Arnot and others, on the 6th of

The cantrri streets of the city and Canongate,
being ciaafpd of all vehicles, and a lane formed
bf ftrtir bring mraded on both rides, none were
to eater but those who formed die
fears of; the
fend* ifcfofl
,J irereeliaedby the

left pmfli westwards; next in order stood tise Wtiak
Foot Guards (two battahons, the n as now), water
General Sir George Ramsay, up to the Netheihow
Port ; from thence to the Farfiament House, and
to the bar thereof, the street was lined by the
trained bands of the dty, the Lord High Con-
stable's Guards, and those of the Earl
The former official being seated in an arm-chah, at
the door of the House, received the officers, while
the members being assembled at the Palace of
Holyrood, were then summoned by name, by the
Lord Clerk Registrar, the Lord Lyon King of
Arms, and the heralds, with trumpets sounding,
after which the procession began, thus : —

Two mounted trumpeters, with coats and banners, bare-
headed.

Two pursuivants in coats and foot mantles, ditto.

Sixty-three Commissioners for burghdon horseback, two
and two, each having a lackey on foot ; the odd number
walking alone.

Seventy-seven Commissioners for shires, mounted and
covered, each having two lackeys on foot.

Fifty-one Lord Barons in their robes, riding two 2nd two,
each having a gentleman to support his train, and three
lackeys on foot, wearing above their liveries velvet coats
with the arms of their respective Lords on the breast and
back embossed on plate, or embroidered in gold or silver.

Nineteen Viscounts as the former.

Sixty Earls as the former.

Four trumpeters, two and two.

Four pursuivants, two and two.

The heralds, Islay, Ross, Rothesay, Albany, Snowdon,
and Marchmont, in their tabards, two and two, bareheaded.

The Lord Lyon King at Arms, in his tabard, with chain,
robe, b&ton, and foot mantle.

The Sword of State, borne by the Earl of Mar.

The Sceptre, borne, by the Earl of Crawford.

THE CROWN,

Borne by the Eari of Forfar.

The purse and commiiaionvbOrne by the Earl of g
Morton. |

THE DURE OF QUEBNSBRRRY, LORD HIGH f
COMMISSIONER,

With his servants, pages, and footmen.

Four Dukes v tw6 and two.

Gentlemen bearing their trains, and each having right
lackeys.

Six Marquises, each having six lackeys.

The Duke of Aigyle, Colonel of the Home Guards.

A squadron of Hone Guards.

The Lord High Commissioner was received
there, at the. door of the House, by the Lord
High Constable and the Earl Marischal, between
whom he was led to the throne, followed by the
Usher of the White Rod. whfte, amid the Mowing
of trumpets, the regalia were laid upon the table
before it

The year 1706^ before rite ftranhliiy offer fori

TM5MY ©F U 106 n!

of the Tweed, that, at
not possibly have continued for one year a
the terms on which theyfoiad

regain, the throne ; for the proposed union
with England had inflamed to a perilous degree
the passions and die patriotism of the nation.

'la August the equivalent money sent to Scotland ' preceding century, and that there i
as a blind to the people for their foil participation between them either absolute union .of '
in the taxes and old national debt of England, was . enmity j and their enmity 4 would t
pompously brought to Edinburgh in twelve great ! calamities, not on themselves tiMfj l w t (jg
waggons, and conveyed to the Castle, escorted by J civilised world. Their Onion would &IM_
a regiment of Scottish cavalry, as Defoe tells us, security for the prosperity of both, for fofc :
amid* .the railing, the reproaches, and die deep tranquillity of the island, for the Just - “
curses of 'the 'people, who then thought of notfcfpg
but war, and viewed the so-called equivalents
the price of their Scottish fame, libeftl *ljnd
honour. K

In their anathemas, we are told that they spared

povseroxnong European states, and for ihr iitmnini
«es of aU Protestant countries."

As the Union debates went on, in vain
eloquent Belhaven, on his knees and i&
beseech the House to save Scotland from

not the very horses which drew the waggons, and on tion and degradation; in vain did the
the return of the latter from the fortress their fory *
could no longer be restrained, and, unopposed by
the sympathising troops, they dashed the vehicles
to pieces, and assailed the drivers with volleys of
stones, by which many of them were severely
injured.

“It was soon discovered, after all,” says Dr.

Chambers, “ that only ,£100,000 of the money was
specie, the rest being in Exchequer bills, which the
Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be
welcome in all parts of Her Majesty's dominions.

This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the
English had tricked them by sending paper instead
of money. Bills, payable 400 miles off, and which
if lost or burned would be irrecoverable, were a
pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come
under to pay English taxes."

In the following year, during the sitting of the
Union Parliament, a terrible tumult arose in the
west, led by two men named Montgommy and
Finlay. The latter had been a sergeant in the
Royal Scots, and this enthusiastic veteran burned
the articles of Union at the Cross of Glasgow, and
with the little sum be had received on his discharge,
enlisted men to march to Edinburgh, avowing his
intention of dispersing the Union Parliament,
sacking the House, and storming die Castle. In
the latter the troops were mi the alert, and the
guns and beacon* were in read in ess. The mob
readily enough took the veteran’s money, but
melted away on the march ; thus, he was captu r ed
and brought in a prisoner to the Castle, escorted by
*50 dragoon s, and the Parliament ^ J #

Fletcher, the astute and wary Lodchart, plead for
the feme of their forefathers, and dr ihhhmi*. liar
measure which was to close the legfelath^faall
for ever. “ Many a patriotic heart," says
“ throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily —
bled in the Parliament Close, to watch die 1
of the Scottish Estates on the detestable
of a union with England. Again and again taffote
trembled in the balance, but happily for Scofomd,
English bribes outweighed the mistaken sap) ot
Scottish patriotism ,and Jacobitism, united against
the measure."

On the 25th of March, 1707, the treaty of
union was ratified by the Estates, and on the sand
of April the ancient Parliament of Scotland ad-
journed, to assemble no more. On that occasion
the Chancellor Seafield made use of a brutal jest,
for which, says Sir Walter Scott, his countr^m
should have destroyed him on the spot

It is, of course, a matter of common ^ubtory,
that the legislative union between Scotland; and
England was carried by the grossest bribery and
corruption ; but the sums actually paid to mem-
bers who sat in that last Parliament are notpe*
haps so well known, and may be cmkmsto foie
reader.

During some financial investigations which wet*
in pro gress in 1711 L oc kh a rt discovered and
made public that the sum of <£**540 tys. yd hpd
been secretly distributed by Lead GodofoMo, foe

a • *

PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN 1 HE PRESENT DAY

Ltd

To the Ear! of Mirchmont . 1104 15 7

n E*rl of Cromarty . . 300 o o

n Lord Prestonhall 200 o o

t* Lord Onnitton, Lord Justice Cleric 200 o o

w Puke of Montrose . 200 o o

w Dnkeof Athole . 1000 o o

n 1W «f Balcarru 500 o o

m Snri of Dunmore . 200

n Lord Anstruther .300

it Ste wart of Castle Stewart . 300

,t Bed of Sgiinton . .900

» Lord Fraser . > . 100

m Lokd Gemock (afterwards Pol worth) 50
tv Kt John Campbell
E**Uf Forfcr .

Sir Kenneth Mackenae
“ lofOleocaira .

iMfcftwwtofAyr
1 okSbMI (afterwards Find-

] Ere the consummation, James Duke of Hamilton
and James Earl of Bute quitted H the House m dis
gust and dispair, to return to it no more.”

The corrupt state of the Scottish peerage can
scarcely excite surprise when we find that, accord*
mg to Stair's Decisions. Lord Pitsligo, but a few
years before this, purloined Lord Coupar’s watch,
they at the time “ being sitting m Parliament » ”
Under terror of the Edinburgh mobs, who nearly
tore the Chancellor and others limb from limb in the
streets, one half of the Signatures were appended to
die treaty in a cellar of a house, No 177, High
Street, opposite the Tron Church, named “the
Union Cellar;” the rest were appended in an arbour
which then adorned the Garden of Moray House
in theCan ong atc; and the moment this was accom-
plished, Queensberry and the qonepimtors-’**
sndh they really seem to have b e en find to England
before daybreak, with jfofe d^pKcate of the treaty.

A bitter song, knoam*^
after simg in every street. *

THE DARE AGS.

Con’d be the wretch, who seised the throne,

And marred oar Constitution ;

And curs’d be they who helped on
That wicked Revolution.

“Curs'd be those traitorous traitors who
By their perfidious knavery,

Hare brought our nation now unto
An everlasting slavery.

Curs’d be the Parliament that day,

Who gave their confirmation ;

And cursed be every whining Whig,

. For. they have damned the nation I”

We have shown what the represen tatic^of
Scotland was, in the account of the RidW<*h*thf
Parliament By the Treaty of Union the number
was cut down to sixty-one for both Houses, and
the general effects of it were long remembered in
Scotland with bitterness and reprehension, and
generations went to their grave ere the long-pro-
mised prosperity came. Ruin and desolation fell
upon the country; in the towns the grass grew
round the market-crosses ; the east coast trade was
destroyed, and the west was as yet undeveloped ;
all the arsenals were emptied, the fortresses dis-
armed, and two royal palaces fell into ruin.

The departure of the king to London in 1603
caused not the slightest difference in Edinbuigh ;
but the Union seemed to achieve the irre-
parable ruin of the capital and of the nation. Of
the former Robert Chambers savs: — “From the
Union, up to the middle of the 18th century, the
existence of the city seems to have been a perfect

blank 1 No improvgtwMHif Aqr
period. On the coftt rary, m Air
depression pervaded the dttk such
its history at m former pdffod A
municated even to the nau
society, which were n iiiafMtlVi for
precise moral carriage, and a
amounting almost to moiaamm^Su
it is to be supposed, of a tfaab of
humiliation.... In short, this may _
less appropriately than emplKtia%» the
qf J$iHnbur%k*

Years of national torpor gad accepted r
followed, and to the Scot who ventured
a sorry welcome was accorded ; yet from
of things Scotland rose to what she it

her own exertions, unaided, and often oh sO atet W h
A return made to the House of Commons ftfesytti
shows that the proportion of the imperial ftmun
contributed by Scotland was only »i pe* tent,
whereas, by the year x866, it had risen to *4} per
cent During that period the revenue of iMghmd
increased 800 per cent, while that of I ftwOllI
increased 3,500 percent, thus showing th#pShme
is no country m Europe which has made such
vast material progress ; and to seek for a psiallet
case we must turn to Australia or the United
States ot America ; but it is doubtful if those who
sat in the old Parliament House on that sgth of
March, 1707, least of all such patriots as Lord
Banff; when he pocketed his^xi as., could, io An

the college of

a vote among foemsefrro in fe vour of that protest,
declaring it to be founded on the laws of foe realm,
for which they were prosecuted before Parliament,
aad sharply reprimanded, a circumstance which
gave great offence to foe nation.

The affairs of foe Faculty are managed by a
Dean, or President, a Treasurer, Clerk, and se-
lected Council ; and, besides foe usual branches
of a liberal education, those who are admitted
as advocates must have gone through a regular
course* of civil and Scottish law.

Connected with the Court of Session ii'ftVu.
Society of Clerks, or Writers to the Roy^fijnet,
whose business it is to subscribe the writs that

by James V., and held its rjiinm
old Tolbooth on the ttih cf MSy t
was first projected by m u n d e, fog
Duke of Albany. The Cfeurt crigtnd&yi
of "the Lord Chancellor, foe Laid
fourteen Lords Ordinary, or Senators ffiSS
clergy and one-half laity)* and afW r wm idt lii'^lie**
finite number of supernumerary judges, des ig na ted
Extraordinary Lords. The TrirpmaiMt of

this Court were defrayed from foe revenues of
the dngy, who bitterly, but vainly, remonstrated
agikist this taxation. Ifroay not be uninteratting
to give here the names of foe first members of foe
Supreme Judicature : —

pass under that signet in Scotland, and practise as
attorneys before the Courts of Session, Justiciary,
and the Jury Court The office of Keeper of the
Signet is a lucrative one, but is performed by a
deputy. The qualifications for admission to this
body are an apprenticeship for five years with one of
the members, after two years’ attendance at the Uni-
versity, and on a course of lectures on conveyancing
given by a lecturer appointed by the Society, and
also on the Scottish law class in the University.

Besides these Writers to the Signet, who enjoy
the right of conducting exclusively certain branches
of legal procedure, there is another, but inferior,
society of practitioners, who act as attorneys be-
fore the various Courts, in which they were of long
standing, but were only incorporated in 1797, under
the title of Solicitors before foe Supreme Courts.

The Judges of foe Courts of Session and Jus-
ticiary, with members of these before-mentioned
corporate bodies, and the officers of Court, form
the College of Justice instituted by James V., and
of which foe Judges of the Court of Session enjoy
the tide of Senators.

The halls for foe administration of justice imme-
diately adjoin foe Parliament House. The Court
of Session is divided into what are named the
Outer and Inner Houses. The former consists of
five judges, or Lords Ordinary, occupying separate
Courts, where cases are heard for the first time ;
the latter co mpris es two Courts, technically known
as foe First and Second Divisions. Four Judges
sit in of thfese, and it is before them that
litigate, if dissatisfied with foe Outer House deci-
sion, may bring their cases for final judgment,
uukm afterwards they indulge in the ex p ensive
luxmy of appealing to foe House of Lords.

The Courts of foe Lords Ordinary enter from
foe oooliBr tenth end of the great htfi, and

^ — . . A— m _ » « ^

JBfcMfc the Cow of

Alexander, Abbot of Cambuskenntth, Lord
President; Richard Bothwell, Rector of Askifo
(whose father was Provost of Edinburgh In the
time of James III.); John Dingwall, Provost of
the Trinity Church; Henry White* Dean of
Brechin; William Gibson, Dean of Restalrig;
Thomas Hay, Dean of Dunbar; Robert Reid,
Abbot of Kinloss ; George Kerr, Provost cf
Dunglass ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie } Sr
John Campbell of Lundie; Sir James Colville
of Easter Wemyss; Sir Adam Otterbume of
Auldhame ; Nicolas Crawford of Oxcngangs ; Sr
Francis Bothwell (who was provost of the city
in 1535); and James Lawson of the Highriggs.

The memoirs which have been preserved of
the administration of justice by the Court of
Session in foe olden time are not much to its
honour. The arbitrary nature of it is re fe rred to
by Buchanan, and in foe time of James VL we
find the Lord Chancellor, Sir Alexander S jtest

(Lord Fyvie in 1598), superintending the lawsuits
of a friend, and instructing him in the ihude aad
manner in which they should be conducted. But
Scott of Scotstannt gives us a sorry account of
this peer, who owed his pr e ferm ent to Asmc of
Denmark. The strongest proof of foe corrupt

nature of the Court is given os by foe Act p ass ed
by foe sixth parliament of James VL, in 1579,
by which the Lords were p rohib ited , 44 No ufoer be
themselves, or be their wives, or servnate* to trite
in ony times commute, bod btfoe, gnde* or 0 k,
fra quhat-sum-ever p ers on or pew o nes pfs ss gtiy
havand, or that hereafter tefl happen in h m

- . — - fMkdfe Ml

ony scnoDs or causes pasawos iosss o nste
under pain of (Gtendofc^K

The nrriiritj for tide k m jririsly' i tff frflf font

Ad Mtetr ersst

Mmkm* bmmmmk A$ if

OLD AMD MEW EDINBURG^,

act of treason, or murder, he
«t the bar in a suit of mail,
men as he could muster;
of clanship rendered it dis*
to shield and countenance a kins-

The forcible abduction of Sir AhmaaderOibssn,
Lord Dune, a noted lawyer (who draw up ft*
decisions of the Court from the nth July, 16x1
to die 1 6th July, 164a)— that his voice and vote
might be absent from die decision of a 1

1

‘ me non m cowman or the buildings on tub south side or the parliament close.

was nmaarr muilmimw in sdinbusoh. urim , »/*&******• iws)

Utah, d h tterer dark daed be might hare done.
' “ i<|i Sid cfBoBhrell, far the murder of Dendey,
I m tieHarlof Aigytt as hereditary U*d

rtW foe** tad a gaud of two hundred

enforce the
the former
af htefotamcn

m fmp » *

wdl known, but told incorrectly, in the httiidOP
the subject It appears that m September s 4 ot»
Loud Dune was carried off from the nugfrfr o m -
hood of St Andrews by George Mddnun

he was kept hr days hi the Castle df Bar*
for Us “ ‘

the court of sesssOIt.

' 1 - >'■ 1

It has been said— with what truth it is impbs- of Lady St Clair to solicir Lady Bffy 1
sible to tell — that, when Cromwell appointed ston (Elisabeth Primrose of Caniiuftftri
eleven Commissioners (three of whom were Eng- Dun, My lord promises, Id back .Ms SPlS
Ashmen) for the administration of justice at Edin- to ply both their lords j also Leven seal h|S ocmsib
burgh, their decisions were most impartial ; and, Murkle (a Lord of Session in 1733). Me is your
on hearing them lauded after the Restoration had good friend, and wishes success; he is jMqus
replaced the old lords on the Bench, the Presi- Mrs. Jackie will side with her cousin B
dent, Gilmour of Craigmillar, said, angrily, “ Deil Clair says Leven has only once gone wmg upon
thank (hem— a wheen kinless loons ! ” The grave his hand since he was a Lord of Session. Mrs.
of one of these Englishmen, George Smith, was Kinloch has been with Miss Pringle^ NewhalL

PLAN OF TUB PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND LAW COURTS.

long pointed out in the abbey church, where
he was buried by torchlight in 1657. (Lamont*§
Diary).

So far down as 1737 traces of bribery and in-
fluence in the Court are to be found, and proof
of thit is given in the curious and rare book
named the “Court of Session Garland."

la a lawsuit, pending 23rd November, i 735 »
Thomas Gibson of Dune, agent for Foulia of
Woodhli, writes to his employer thus “ I hare
spoken to Stricken, and several of the lord* who
■* at NfeM** V. <**■«*
OOMHMAAmM maA that pie*. By Lrti Bt
4 am «M m. Mn. Mata* ® » wait «• -Ml
r^wttDMMiwiiir. n cm * hmm aai theJwonr

Young Dr. Pringle it a good agent tkme, and
ditcouraes Lord NcwhaU tfrmgfy am Urn km a/

nature. "

loti Newhall waa Sir Walter Prince, Kjn^A
•on of the laird of StitchiU, Laid of Soation is
1718. Bat tuch would aeem to ham bean A*
influence* that were aaed to obtai n dedtio n t in
the olden time ; and, before qn lt ti ag tV mbjtetct
the Parliament Home we ate? recall / fair Of An

*01 fiagen there.

TV n*rt dhriq

Him hem toeip m

Old and -new Edinburgh

'mrnmm

in 1659, and studying law while Fergesson pleaded, and addressed the jmy.
a member of the Faculty of Offering their services, these were gladly accepted
the 5th June, 1668, from which by the unfortunates whom defeat had 'thrown at
industriously to record tte deci- the mercy of the Government ''Each lawyer
^ ottrt Session. He was one of the exerted his abilities with the greatest solicitude,

;^ 4 ^sl for the Earl of Argyll in x68x, and four but with little or no effect; national and political

jptoaftd was M.P. for West Lothian. To the rancour inflamed all against the prisoners. The
fldbitraiy measures of the Scottish Government he jurors of Carlisle had been so terrified by the
^offered all constitutional resistance, and for his passage of the Highland army — orderly and peace-
seal in support of the Protestant religion was ex- ful though it was — that they deemed everything
posed to some trouble and peril id 1686. He like tartan a perfect proof of guilt ; and they were

firmly opposed the attempt of James VII. to utterly incapable of discriminating the amount of

abolish the penal laws against Roman Catholics in complicity in any particular prisoner, but sent all
Scotland ; and in 1692 was offered the post of who came before them to the human shambles—
Lord Advocate, which he bluntly declined, not for such the place of execution was then named—
being allowed to prosecute the perpetrators of the before the Castle-gate. At length one of the two
massacre of Glencoe, which has left an indelible Scottish advocates fell upon an expedient, which
stab ‘on. the memory of William of Orange. He he deemed might prove effectual, as eloquence had
wu| regular in his attendance during the debates failed. He desired his servant to dress himself in
on the Union, against which he voted and pro- a suit of tartan, and skulk about in the neighbour-
tested ; but soon after age and infirmity com- hood of Carlisle, till he was arrested, and, vx the
petted him to resign his place in the Justiciary usual fashion, accused of being “a rebeL” As
Court; and afterwards that on the Bench. He such the man was found guilty by the English
died in 1792, leaving behind him MSS., which are jury, and would have been condemned had not
preserved in ten folio and three quarto volumes, his master stood forth, and claimed him as his
many of which have been published more than servant, proving beyond all dispute that he had
qncfc. been in immediate attendance on himself during

Few senators have left behind them so kindly the whole time the Highland army had been in
\ : a memory as Alexander Lockhart, Lord Covington, the field.

•0 called from His estate in Lanarkshire. His This staggered even the Carlisle jury, and, when
paternal grandfather was the celebrated Sir George aided by a few caustic remarks from the young and
Lockhart, President of the Court of Session ; his indignant advocate, made them a little more cau-
matemal grandfather was the Earl of Eglinton ; tious in their future proceedings. So high was the
and his father was Lockhart of Camwath, author estimation in which Lockhart of Covington (who
of the “ Memoirs of Scotland." died in 1782) was held as an advocate, that Lord

t$ehad been at the Bar from 1722, and, when Newton — a senator famous for his extraordinary
appointed to the Bench, in 1774, had long borne judicial talents and social eccentricities— when at
the' reputation of being one. of the roost able the Bar wore his gown till it was in tatters ; and
lawyers of the age, yet he never realised more when, at last, he was compelled to have a new
than a thousand aryear by his practice. He lived one made, he had a fragment of the neck of the
in a somewhat isolated mansion, near the Parlia- original sewed into it, that he might still boast he
meat Close, which eventually was used as the wore “ Covington's gown." Lord Newton, famous
' -Post Office. Lockhart and Fetgusson (afterwards in the annals of old legal convivialia, died so late
Lbd l^tfour, in 1764), being rival advocates, were as October, x8i c.

\ usually pitted against each other in cases of Covington, coadjutor to Lord Pitfour, always
> , fop*tene e » After the battle of Culloden, says wore his hat when on the Bench, being afflicted
. Robert Chambers, "many violently unjust, as well withr weak eyes.

as bloody measures, were resorted to at Carlisle in Lords Monboddo and Karnes, though both
- the disposal of die prisoners, about seventy of teamed senators, ate chiefly ' remembered for
^OfiyiSi caaatito a barbarous death." Messrs. Lock- their eccentricities, some of which would sow
hpg£',;uuA Fetgus son, indignant at the treatment be deemed vulgarities .

iOy T|| Pu wrirrss and ftp- unscrupulous > The former, James Barnet, who wed 1*2 ted to
procure cm dm Bench m 1767, Once hMhmffel Mm si stf .If#
o** wanin g u- bums, which .behmptt**

LORDS MOMBQDDO, KAMES, AJ& HAILES.

to the caie qf a farrier, with orders for the ad-
ministration of certain medicines ; but the farrier
went beyond these, and mixed, in it a consider-
able quantity of treacle. As the horse died next
morning, Lord Monboddo raised a prosecution for
its value, and pleaded his own cause at the Bar.

He lost the case, and was so enraged against his
brother judges that he never afterwards sat with
them on the Bench, but underneath, among the
clerks,. This case was both a remarkable and an
amusing one, * from the mass of Roman law quoted
on the occasion. ^

Though hated and despised by his brdfo^iAbr
his oddities, Lord Monboddo was one of the most
learned and upright judges of his time. “ His
philosophy,” says Sir Walter Scott, “as is well
known, was of a fanciful and somewhat fantastic
character ; but his learning was deep, and he pos-
sessed a singular power of eloquence, which re-
minded the hearer Of the os rotundum of the Grove
or Acadesae. Jfinfhusiastically p&rfial to classical
habits, nis Entertainments were always given in the
evenmg, when there was a circulation of excuiient
Bordeaux, in flasks garlanded with roses, which
were also strewed on the table, after the manner
of Horace.”

The best society in Edinburgh was always to be
found at his house in St John’s Street, Canongate.

His youngest daughter, a lady of amiable dis-
position and of surpassing beauty, which Bums
panegyrised, is praised in one of the papers of
the Mirror as rejecting the most flattering and
advantageous opportunities of settlement in mar-
riage, that she might amuse her father's loneliness
and nurse his old age. I

He was the earliest patron of one of the best j

scholars of his time, Professor John Hunter, who | tt

was for many years his secretary, and wrote the i searches were chiefly directed to the history W
first and best volume of his lordship’s “ Treatise on ] antiquities of his native country ; and hk MSHVjr

daughter’s death, by consumption at ]
in 179a He kept her portrait oomi \
doth ; at this he would 0 fop look sadly, <
lifting it, and then turn to Ms volume of Ha
He died in 1799.

The other eccentric we have re f erred to was
Henry Home, Lord Karnes, who was oMMHhh
tinguished for his literary abilities, his
subtlety, and wonderful powers of convenuttui \
yet he was strangely accustomed to apply toWartir
his intimates a coarse term which he invaiWty
(used, and this peculiarity is well noted by 8k Writer
Scott in “ Redgauntlet” He was ifdied to m
Bench in 1752, and afterwards lived ip New Street,
in a house then ranking as one of die first in llhe
city. The catalogue of his printed works k a vbjr
long one.

On retiring from the Bench he took a public
farewell of his brother judges. After a a ol t tta
and pathetic speech, and shaking hands aH sound,
as he was quitting the Court, he turned found;
and exclaimed, in his familiar manner, ** Faro ys

a’ weel, ye auld ” here using Jus custMMqjr

explosion. A day or two before his dum| m
told Dr. Cullen that he earnestly wished t* tfe
away, as he was exceedingly curious to leaf* At
manners of another world ; adding, "DoctOft US 2
never could be idle in this world, I AaK'jjMky
perform any task that may be imposed npUft let
in the next” He died in December, 17H, Si
his 87th year.

Sir David Daliyraple, Lord Hailes, die umflfl
of Scotland, was raised to the Bench In 1766. He
had studied law at Utrecht; and 1
for his strict integrity, unu
nity of manner, but he
a scholar and author than as a senator. His VO-

his lordship’

the Origin of Languages.” When Lord Monboddo
travelled to London he always did so on horse-
back. On his last journey thither he got no
farther than Dunbar. His nephew inquiring the
reason of this, “Oh, Geoige,” said he, “ I find 1
am noo aughty four.” The manners of Lord Mon-
boddo were as odd as his personal appearance.
He has been described as looking “more like an
old stuffed monkey dressed in judge’s robes than
anything else;” and so convinced is he said to
hare been -of bis fantastic theory of human tafls
that, when a child was bora in bis house he would
TTDfft jifhn gfli— mflhrr J — in order to see it in its
fib* sfctft, ds Jm had an idea that mktwives out die
tribe#!

8to never rec o vere d dm shock of bis bnriri

labours extended over a period of dost on f
years. At his death, in 1 79*, un able hutuT
sermon was preadmd by the well-known Dfe
Alexander Carlyle of InvereA ; and, as no
could be found, tbe beir-male was about to mm
possessioo of his estates, to tbe cadu rien m Hi
daughter, but some months after, when sb* nflri
about to give up New Hades, and quit dm house
in New Street, one was found beh ind a ~ “
shutter, in the totter place; and it 1
the po e ww io o of all, (9 In
took place ftrtjr jmn after.

Fiend* Centner, Load Go
In 1764, *** one ef tew meto*

Bur* who, after » #t of M
srithunt fonkm Imb In bedL nr

old and new mnmjKSK

eloquence upon what they had
Itto the opposite counsel When
^volunteer gainst the Highland army,
lip feM into the hands of CohMl John
and was nearly hanged as a Spy at
Bridge. He was author of several
works; but had many strange fancies, in
seemed to indulge with a view to his
th, which was always valetudinarian. He had
a curious predilection to pigs, and once had a

he used to measure out tbe*utmost time that was
allowed for a judge to deliver his opinion; and
Lord Amiston would never allow another word to
be uttered after the last gain had run, and was
frequently seen to shakeommously this old -fash ioned
chronometer in the faces of his learned brethren tf
they became vague or tiresome. He was a jovial
old lord, in whose house, when Sheriff Cookbum
lived there as a boy, in 1750, sixteen hogsheads
or* claret were used yearly. Of him the President

' INTERIOR OF THE JUSTICIARY COURT.*

young one, which followed him like a dog
wherever he went, and slept in his bed. When
it attained thq years and bulk of swmehood this
was* nttendpd with inconvenience; but, unwilling
to part with his companion, Lord Gardenstone,
When he undressed, laid his clothes on the door,
as a bed for h, and that he might find his clothes

S in the winter mornings. He died at Mom-
h wear Edinburgh, in July, 1793.
Wftt.Dundaa of Amiston succeeded Cul-
h t{f4§» as Lord President In Ids days
me rio c to that high official to have

Dalrymple said : “ I khew the great lawyers of
the last age — Mackenzie, Lockhart, and my own
father, Stair — but Dundas excels them all 1 ” (Cata-
logue of the Lords, 1767.) He died in 1787.

Among the last specimens ot the strange Scottish
judges of the last century were the Lords Bahnuto
and Hermand

The former, Claud Boswell ot Bahnuto, was
bom in 174a, and was educated at the name
school, io Dalkeith, with Hairy Dundas, afterwards
Lord Melville ; and the friendship faoW t by to
two boys them, lasted till the death of to jWW&fc
May, 1811, He a)way|spok^evenoothe tto*i

RD HERMAND.P^

*ith the strongest broad Scottish accent, and when is thus mentioned in “Peter's Lattasto
there was fond of indulging in pungent jokes. He folk “ When 4 Gfry Maimcring *
was made a judge in 1798, and officiated as such judge was so delighted wife the picture
\flii 1822. In the March of that year his friend of the old Scottish judges in that
and kinsman Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchm- novel, that he could talk of nothing gls# 1 M
leek was mortally wounded in a duel with James dell, Dandie, and the high jinks, for
Stuart of Dunearn, about a mile from Baimuto He usually carried one volume of the
House, whither he was borne, only to die ; and the with him ; and one morning, on the
venerable senator, who w as then m his 83rd year, love for it so completely got the better of Jutt

RUINS IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE AFTRR THE GREAT FI EE.

never fully recovered the shock, and died in July,
1824.

George Feigusson, Lord Hermand, succeeded
Lord Braxfield in 1799, and was on the Bench
during all ^ p o lit ical trials connected with the
West Country sed i tio n s of 1817. He and Lord
Newt on were great cronies and convivialists ; but
the former outlived Newton and all his old last-
century contemporaries of die Bar, and was the
Is* link between the past and present race of
Scottish lawyer*. On the Bench he was hasty and
ssmajtk. He was an enthusiast in foe memories

of!

NOVSMBM, 1814 .

he lugged in die subject, heed end
the midst of a speech about some diy petal m
law; nav, getting wanner every moment be Spflfce
of it, he at last fiairty plucked the votamt (h — d S
pocket, and, in spite of all the raiinftntNUMpi M
his brethren, insisted on reading aland A*#*#?
passage for their edification. He want thzongb Ao
task with his wonted vivacity, pm gnat Mt ta
every speech, and most ap propriat e eapusljtota
evoy joke . • Duri ng dm whole fe wm jfc Wgbft
, Scott was pmstnt 1 aaw» mosm% sa pm a^iMr
capad*~doee under «* «MfcUlM>fc

1 Mate aamtt of Htnmusd, mm Efl n l igW fil lipi
whsBiahisSediyaac.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE.

ITli Inmniiw with Jamej VI.— P*ter Wlttumuon'i Tavern— Royal Exchange-Statue of Charles IL— Bank of Scotlan d
IpM Vine ef xyoo— The Week of Restoration— John Row's Coffee-house— John ■ Coffee house— Sylvester Otway— Sir W. Forbes's Beak—
l<lR^U|ir Scott'S Eulogy on Sir William Forbes— John Kay's Pnnt-shop— The Parliament Stilts- James Stbfcald— A Libel Ckss-kne
»— — Hn iwkilaU Pitcairn— 11m “ Qmunr Office" — Pain tl OX of Kimr Charlea'e Statue White — Sami afAmuiU

CHANGE has come over the scene of their
jhiboam and the system of the law which these
old lords could never have conceived possible—
We mean the system that is gradually extending in
Scotland, of decentralising the legal business of the
countiy — a system which stands out in strong con-
trast to the mode of judicial centralisation now

like most of the houses in the same quarter of the
city/ to the accommodation of tradespeople and
inferior persons attached to the courts of law.
.... The southern side of the square and a
small portion of the eastern are filled with vener-
able Gothic buildings, which for many genera-
tions have been dedicated to the accommodation

prevailing in England. The Scottish county of the courts of law, but which are now shut out
'Courts have a jurisdiction almost co-extensive from the eye of the public by a very ill-conceived
with that of the Supreme Court, while those of and tasteless front-work, of modem device, m-
England have a jurisdiction (without consent of eluding a sufficient allowance of staring square
parties) to questions only of ^50 value. This gives windows, Ionic pillars, and pilasters. What beauty
them an overwhelming amount of bus ness, while the front of the structure may have possessed *1
the supreme courts of Scotland are starved by the its onginal state I have no means of ascertaining ,
inferior competing with them in every kind of liti- but Mr. Wastle (J. G. Lockhart) sighs every time
gation. Thus the Court of Session is gradually we pass through the close, as pathetically as could
dwindling away, by the active competition of the be wished, * over the glory that hath departed/ 11

provincial courts, and the legal school becomes
every day more defective for lack of legal prac-
tice. The ultimate purpose, or end, of this system
will, undoubtedly, lead to the disappearance of the

The old Parliament House, the front of which
has been destroyed and concealed by the arcaded
and pillared f&£ade referred to, we have already
described. The old Goldsmiths’ Hall, on the

Court of Session, or its amalgamation with the west side, formed no inconsiderable feature in the

supreme courts in London will become an object
of easy accomplishment ; and then the school from
whence the Scottish advocates and judges come,

close, where, about 1673, the first coffee-house
established in the city was opened.

The Edinburgh goldsmiths of the olden time

being non-existent, the assimilation of the Scottish were deemed a superior class of tradesmen, and
county courts to those of England, and the sweep- were wont to appear in public with cocked hats,
ifcjg away of the whole legal business of the countiy scarlet cloaks, and gold-mounted canes, as men of

to London, must eventually follow, with, perhaps,
tfce^Ontfre subjection of Scotland to the English
courts of )aw.

A description of the Parliament Close is given in

undoubted consideration. The father of John
Law of Lauriston, the famous financial projector,
was the son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, where
he was bom in April, itji ; but by far the most

the second volume of “ Peter’s Letters to his Kins- famous of all the craft in the old Parliament Close

Mfc," before the great fire of 1824 :—

41 The courts of justice with which all these
wtoU mem are so closely connected are placed

was George Heriot

Down to the year 1780, says a historian, perhaps
there was not a goldsmith in Edinburgh who did

hi end about the same range of buildings which not condescend to manual labour. In their shops

telbflMr times were set apart for the accomtnoda-
tpoa bf the Parliament of Scotland The main
'ffp^ n en ch them buildings lies through a small

every one of them might have been found busy
with some light work, and generally in a very plain
dress, yet ever ready to serve a customer, politely

dV&Nt which from this circumstance takes and readily. The whole plate shops of die city
Of iktjh rtia m mt Chst On two sides being collected jn or pear dm Parhaaent Ckwe,

m-mm m mJ Mkmmt Ohm On two sides
h m n o anded by houses of the same
oMIomdan* «*d in ^ jh ys c, of did,

jMM hhA te m itoiuStl

thithn it wu that, til dw daw of tke
captmy, owmtty couplet wocted t het

sndfM dm gddnmths of dm city then Imgfcscsmaiiy

. GEORGE HERIOT

any goods on hand in their shops, everything had
to be ordered long before it was required ; and it
was always usual for the goldsmith and his cus-
tomer to adjourn together to the Baijen Hole, an
ancient baker’s shop, the name of which has proved
a puzzle to local antiquarians, or to John’s Coffee
House, to adjust die order and payment, through
the medium of a dram or a stoup of mellow ale.
But, as time passed on, and the goldsmiths of
Edinburgh became* more extensive in their views,
capital, and ambition,
the old booths in the
Parliament Close were
in quick succession
abandoned for ever.

The workshop of
George Heriot existed
in this neighbourhood
till the demolition of
Beth's Wynd and the ad-
jacent buildings. There
were three contiguous
small shops, with pro-
jecting wooden super-
structures above them,
that extended in a line,
between the door of the
old Tolbooth and that
of the Laigh Council-
house. They stood upon
the site of the entrance-
hall of the present Signet
Library, and the central
of these three shops was
the booth of the im-
mortal George Heriot,
the founder of the great
hospital, the goldsmith
to King James VI. — the
good-humoured, honest,
and generous M Jingling Geordie” of the “ Fortunes
of Nigel/

It measured only seven feet square I The back
windows looked into Beth’s Wynd ; and, to show
the value of local tradition, it long appeared that
this booth belonged to George Heriot, and it be-
came a confirmed fact when, on the demolition of
the latter place, his name was found carved above
dm door; on the stone lintel His forge and
a stone crucible and lid, were
the rains, and are now
ip the museum of the hospital,
fid wese pseaantad by the late Mi.

«T CnmmkM

Humble though this booth, after % ]
of “the bourne Earl of Gemrie,” when
vagauce of Anne of Deupaik-t* <
of George Hafiot— rendered the kktffc priv ate
exchequer somewhat impahedL he was >Mt obese
paying visits to some of the wealthier fitttoMt h
the Lawnmarket or Parliament Square, aaSSwc
others, to the royal goldsmith. The mShMH(
bred to his father's business, to which in lhai aft
was usually added the occupation of a banker, Was
admitted a member of

otoaoB hemot’s drinking cur.

.the lacmpaatk* «f
Goldsmiths on the wth
May, 158ft. la 197 he
wa« appointed goldsmith
to Queen Anne, and
toon after to the kkf.
Several of the acoouatt
for jewels furnished by
him to the queen are
inserted in Constable's
-Life of Heriot,” pub-
lished in i8ss.

It is related that one
day he had boss sent
for the king, whom
he found seated in one
of the rooms at Raff-
rood, before a
.posed of cedar, or 1
other perfume
which cm «
fragrance

rim king meat&mtri in-
cidentally that ii was
quite aa cSat^r at k
was agreeable: “If your
majesty will visit ml M
my booth ia the Pm>
foment CIqn,* pH
a fee mom ooatly Sum

Heriot, “ I will show you
that” -Say you sol* said dm king* “thin 1

will"

On doing so, he was surprised to ftad that HmI*
had only a coal fire of the usual kind, » , «
-Is this, then, year costly fee?” safari At

k i ng ,

H Wait, your highness, tttlgstsqr
Heriot, who from aa old cabinet or /Maria feriMl
bond tot£%po» which bo bad km® I sfafa, J k rij
laying k on thefc ^ho ask ed,

* 9 Z&* tm "

$LD AND HEW EDINBURGH:

next to the jeweller’* was,
tot ImI century, a tavern, kept by
i floor Williamson, fee returned Palatine
rftoys abducted tern Aberdeen wen called)
himself on his signboard as
the other world.” Here the magistrates
: of the Deid-chaek — a dinner at the expense
of the city— after having attended an execution,
a practice abolished by Lord Provost Creech.

In 2685 an Ex-
change was erected
in the Parliament
Close. It had a range
of paisas for the
accommodation of
merchants transact-
ing business ; but by
old uie and wont,
attached as they were
to the more ancient
place of meeting, the
Cross, this conveni-
ence was scarcely ever
used by them.

In 1685 the eques-
trian statue of Charles
II., a well-executed
work in lead, was
erected in the Par-
liament Close, not
far from its present
site, where one .in-
tended for Cromwell
was to have been
placed ; but the
Restoration changed,
the political face of
Edinburgh. In the
account* of George
Drummond, City
Treasurer, 1684-5, it
appears that the king’s
statue was erected by the provost, magistrates, and
tetedl, at tne cost of .£3,580 Scots, the bill for

of the royal birthday are worthy of remembrance,
as being perhaps amongst the most kmgcherished
customs of the people 1

Ai ■; ^ ^ ■\r vrV

UK WILLIAM VORBKS, OP PIlsLlUU. (A/Ur A’qy )

i to have come from Rotterdam. On the
tajl* destruction of the ol«i Parliament Close, by a
P# Jtet to be ’recorded, th s statue was conveyed for
id of the Calton Gaol, where it lay
•d left* fears, dfi the pretentjpedestal was erected,
hi JMMi ate Imem two marble tablets, which
ty jlirt IptettMld aiming eo t ttc Iff tHm th e

the so m e wha t fid-
~‘ J “~:>4tee belong ed

ft The times were changed, old gone,

And a stranger filled the Stuart's throne." *

It was usual on this annual festival to have a
public breakfast in the great hall, when tables, at
the expense of the city, were covered with wines

and confections, and
the sovereign’s health
was drunk with ac-
claim, the volleys of
the Town Guard
made the tall man-
sions re-echo, and
the statue of King
Charles was decorated
with laurel leaves by
the Auld Callants , as
the boys of Hanot’s
Hospital were named,
and who claimed this
duty as a prescriptive
right

The Bank of Scot-
land, incorporated by
royal charter in
1695 first opened for
business in a flat, or
floor , of the Parlia-
ment Close, with a
moderate staff of
clerks, and a paid-up
capital of only ten
thousand pounds ster-
ling. The smallest
share which any per-
son could hold in this
bank was £1,000
Scots, and the largest
j£ 90,000 of the same
money. To lend money on heritable bonds and
other securities was the chief business of the in-
fant bank. The giving of bills of exchange — the
great business of private banker s - w ag, after modi
deliberation, tried by the “adventurers,” with a view
to the extension of business as &r as possible. In
of this object, and to circulate their
the realm, branch offices were
opened at Glasgow, Dundee* Montrose, and Atef-
dean, to receive and psytetaMoehm the Iwm
of iftif f ut Mdumget b* aste nod* Uh Bbt

Wi

BANK OF SCOTLAND

which they concaved to be more properly in-
tended “as a common repository of the nation's
cash— a ready fund for affording credit and loans,
and for making receipts and payments of money
easy by the company's notes." But, as dealing in

7 — — -

noun for business, and establishing j/qdes
guladons, which will never answer the
of the exchange trade."

Ere long the bank, we are told fin “Domestic
Annals of Scotland "), found it impossible to tup

BUINt IN THE OLl> MARK FT CLOSE AFTFt THE GREAT FIRE OF MOVSNSSS* lltf
{From mm Etching f Mi ak td mi Hu time.)

exchange interfered with private trade, the new port the bur provincial branches m they rfid Mt
Bank of deemed it troublesome and contribute to the ends in view ; "he the MMMjy

improper. u There was much to be done in that that was once lodged in any of thssy ' plnomty tht

busmess without doors, by day and night, without cashiers issuing bills pnysbls at BfinbutJ^fc meU
such variety of circumstances and conditions as auf bt aimer fy dtfbjdase dMWhswdijr^ df

sre in0dMiM with the pnciw hours of s psWc coarse, because of there bihgio IbAortpa Atfr
s4a aftd the rules and regulations of * weB- to petaoni taMmt la the fMovto ttfc

nrfr~f j and no company Ad the danadnUe tjflsy b tjfh| ft

^ ^

®ilp|§iSS$ WliWtll mmmarnm^

OLD AND NEW EDINBUROH.

rnfommltm.

on honel mck to foePariiar
where the company’* business was
wholly restricted lor a time to
and all transactions to be in

fire we have mentioned as occurring in
> the bank perished. Assisted by the £ari of
Governor of die Castle and also of the
bank, with a party of soldiers, and by David Lord
Rufoven, a director, who stood in the turnpike
stair all night, keeping the passage free, the cash,
bank-notes, books, and papers, were saved Thus,
though every other kind of property perished, the
struggling bank was able to open an office higher
up in the city. (“ Hist of Bank of Scot.,” 1728.)

In that fire the Scottish Treasury Room perished,
with the Exchequer and Exchange, and the Parlia-
ment Square was afterwards rebuilt (it^ the pic-
turesque style, the destruction Of which was so
much regretted), in conformity with an Act passed
In 1698, regulating the mode of building in Edin-
burgh with regard to height, convenience, strength,
arid security from fire. The altitude of the houses
was greatly reduced Previous to the event of
1700, the tenements on the south side of the
Parliament Close, as viewed from the Kirk-
heugh, were fifteen storeys in height, and till the
erection of the new town were deemed the most
splendid of which the city could boast
Occurring after ** King William’s seven years of
famine," which the Jacobites believed to be a curse
sent from heaven upon Scotland, this calamity
was felt with double force; and in 1702 the Town
Council passed an Act for “ suppressing immorali-
ties,” in which, among the tokens of God's wrath,
41 the great fire of the 3d February" is specially
referred to.

Notwithstanding the local depression, we find
in 1700 none of the heartless inertia that charac-
terised the city for sStty years after the Union.
Not an hour was lost in commencing the work
of restoration, and many of the sites were bought
by Robert Mylhe, the king’s master-mason. The
.wbw Royal Exchange, which had its name and the
tteto 1700 cut boldly above its doorway, rose to
tee height of twelve storeys on die south — deemed
V altitude in those days. On its eastern

'mb Wat on open arcade, with Doric pilasters and
WMritowc, ts a covered walk for pedestrians,
_4jjia effect ofthe whole was stately and ira-
tewfiqg /Many aristocratic families who had been
Hocking back to the vast tene-
of 'tee- Gone, nfoons others the

E W abt y^ jehoswi ncydcnt theft in *
ttatfof the tateoae tatfe.

and whose footman was accused of bong one of
the rioters, and who vary nearly had a terrible
tragedy acted in her own house, foe outcome of
the great one in the Grassmarket
It . is related that the close connection into
which the noble family of Wemyss were thus
brought to the Porteous mob, as well as their
near vicinity to the chief line of action, naturally
produced a strong impression on the younger
members of the family. They had probably been
aroused from bed by the shouts of the rioters
assembling beneath their windows, and the din of
their sledge-hammers thundering on the old Tol-
booth door. Thus, not long after the Earl of
Wemyss — the Hon. Francis Charteris was bom
in 1723, and was then a boy— proceeded, along
with his sisters, to get up a game, or repre-
sentation of the Porteous mob, and having duly
forced his prison, and dragged forth the supposed
culprit, “ the romps got so thoroughly into the
spirit of their dramatic sports that they actwfty
hung up their brother above a door, and had well
nigh finished their play in real tragedy.”

The first coffee-house opened in Edinburgh was
John Row's, in Robertson’s Land, a tall tenement
near the Parliament House. This was in 167.3.
It was shut up in 1677, in consequence of a
brawl, reported to the Privy Council by the
Town Major, who had authority to see into such
matters.

The north-east comer of the Parliament Close
was occupied by John’s coffee-house. There, as
Defoe, the historian of the Union, tells us, the
opponents of this measure met daily, to discuss
the proceedings that were going on in the Parlia-
ment House close by, and to form schemes of
opposition thereto; and there, no doubt, were
sung fiercely and emphatically the .doggerel rhymes
known as 11 Belhaven’s Vision,’’ of which the only
copies extant are those printed at Edinburgh in
1729, at the Glasgow Arms, opposite the Com
Market; and that other old song, which was
touched by the master-hand of Bums : —

‘ What force or guile could'not
Through many warlike ages,

Is now wrought by a coward few
For hireHng traitor’s wages;

The English steel wc coukl disdain,
Secure in vakmr’s station ; ,

But England’s gold has been our
Sadi a parcel of rogues in a

John* coflefrhouae nt ake the resort of the
judge* and iawjren of the. eighteenth cent wylbr
consultations, and tor thdr “ metirii i^* or fidNe
j o'dock dram; {br io theae day erer? citkenhad .

puttuDMt Cloa&]

JOHN OSWALD.

his peculiar howff, or place of resort by day or
night, where merchants, traders, and men of every
station, met for consultation, or good-fellowship,
And to hear the items of news that came by the
mail or stage from distant parts ; and Wilson,
writing in 1847, says, “ Currie's Tavern, in Craig's
Close, once the scene of meeting of various dubs,
and a favourite resort of merchants, still retains
a reputation among certain antiquarian bibbers for
an old-fashioned luxury, known by the name
of pap-in, a strange compound of small-beer and
whiskey, curried, as the phrase is, with a
oatmeal."

Gossiping Wodrow tells us in his “ Analecta,”
that, on the 10th of June, 1712, “The birthday of
the Pretender, I hear there has been great outrages
at Edinburgh by his friends. His health was drunk
early in the morning in the Parliament Close ; and
at night, when the magistrates were going through
the streets to keep the peace, several were
taken up in disguise, and the King’s health (t.e.,
James VIII.) was drunk out of severed windows,
and the glasses thrown over the windows uften
the magistrates passed by, and many windows
were illuminated. At Leith there was a standard
set upon the pier, with a thistle and Nemo me
tmpune lacessit , and J R. VIII, ; and beneath,
Noe Abjuration, This stood a great part of the
day.” Had the old historian lived till the dose
of the century or the beginning of the present,
he might have seen, as Chambers tells us, “ Sing-
ing Jamie Balfour " — a noted convivialist, of whom
a portrait used to hang in the Leith Golf-house —
with other topers in the Parliament Close, all bare-
headed, on their knees, and hand-in-hand, around
the statue of Charles II., chorusing vigorously,

“ The King shall enjoy his own again!* Jamie
Balfour was well known to Sir Walter Scott.

About the year 1760 John’s coffee-house was
kept by a man named Oswald, whose son John,
bom there, and better known under his assumed
name of Sylvester Otway, was one of the most
extraordinary characters of that century as a poet
and politician. He served an apprenticeship to a
jeweller in the Close, till a relation left him a
legacy, with which he purchased a commission in
the Black Watch, and in 1780 he was the third
lieutenant in seniority in the and battalion when
serving in India. Already master of Latin and
Greek, he then taught himself Arabic, and, quitting
the army in 1783, became a violent Radical, and
published inEartdon a pamphlet on the British
Cbnstftutkui, netting forth his viewi (crude as they
we) and principles. His amatory poems received 1
the approbation of Bums; end, after publishing }

. — i >,, ‘ “t *

various farces, effusions, end foy pnlhjad nmuauL
he joined the French RevolathatMt in ttytyKSit
his pamphlets obtained far him adnMMl'wt
the Jacobite Club, and his experiences (a flit
42nd procured him command of a regiment com-
posed of the masses of Paris, with which he
marched against the royalists in La Veodtih on
which occasion his men* mutinied, and dhofc
together with his two sons—* whom, in the spiri t of
equality, he had made drummers — and an
( gentleman, who had the misfortune to be serving
jin the same battalion.

John third Earl of Btfffe, a statesman ask 4
patron of literature, who procured a pension for
Dr. Johnson, and who became so unpopular aa
a minister through the attacks of Wilke% was
bom in the Parliament Close on the 95th of May,

1713-

Near to John’s coffee-house, and on the south
side of the Parliament Close, was the banking-house
of Sir William Forbes, Bart, who was born at Edin-
burgh in 1739. He was favourably known as the
author of the “ Life of Beattie," and other works,
and being one of the most benevolent and high-
spirited of citizens. The bank was in reality estab-
lished by the father of Thomas Goutts, the eminent
London banker, and young Forbes, in October,
1753, was introduced to the former as an appren-
tice for a term of seven yean. He became a co-
partner in 1761, and on the death of one of toe
Messrs. Coutts, and retirement of another on
account of ill-health, while two others were settled
in London, a new company was formed, comprise
ing Sir William Forbes, Sir James Hunter Blair,

! and Sir Robert Herries, who, at first, carried on
business in the name of the old firm.

In 1773, however, Sir Robert formed a sepa-
rate establishment in London, when the name was
changed to Forbes, Hunter, and Co., of which
firm Sir William continued to be the head till M|l
death, in 1806.

Kincaid tells us that, when their first banking-
house was budding, great quantities of h u im m
bones — relics of St Giles’s Chwchyaid—wete dig
up, which were again buried at the south egaf
corner, between the wall of the edifice and the
Parliament Stairs that led to the Colgate; gti
that, “not many yean ago, numbesu were afap deg
up in the Parliament Closer which mkm cs sufo By
pot in casks, and buried in the Ci s ygim* Ch aa rfc

Pi

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

J fts upper barony of Pitsligo, in-
|*SOAcatW»d ruined old mansion-house of
. He bestowed charity daily upon
. men, who were in the habit of
, ^ jtoo him as he entered or left the bank, or as
| fussed through As Pa rli a men t Close, where for

canto of “ Mansion,'’ thus affectionately m I
forcibly : —

“ Far may we search before we find
A heart so manly and so kind !

But not around his honoured urn.

Shall friends alone and kindred mourn ;

THI PARLIAMENT STAIRS. (4frrSt*vr.)

as we are told in “The Hermit in Edin-
*&*«#" might be seen the figure of “ that
pBhr#f worth, Sir William Forbes, in the costume
of I ha Jsst century, with a prolusion of grey locks
tied % a dub, and a cloud of hair-powder flying
/ hfah hi A wiodby day ; his toll* upright form
*e aides of tytal life; the poor

won pi met m me im

The thousand eyes ha care had dried
Pour at his name a bitter tide;

And frequent (alls the grateful dew.
For benefits die world i
If mortal charity dare dste
The AlmightT’s attributed i

Tim widmts skidd, Air wpW* rtsp/”
Near his hankinghome, and
lament (or old back) Stairs, aaskags

parBuMHri: fcbM ]

"THE BEACON/'

pied by John Kay, the well-known engraver and menced business in die ParKamw* Qo <e ,
caricaturist, whose “ Portraits ” of old Edinburgh in 1783, he started a new
characters certainly form, with their biographies, named The Edinburgh Ahgasine,
perhaps the most unique collection in Europe, engravings, the principal papers in wgm
During his whole career he occupied the same small articles on Scottish antiquities^ the prdductien of
print-shop ; the solitary window was filled with his his own pen. He was the projector the
own etchings, which amounted to nearly 900 in Edinburgh Herald \ which, however, was fffcpi dis-
number. He had originally been a barber, but continued. Relinquishing his establishment in
after 1785 devoted himself solely to the art of the Close about 1792, he devoted himself to a
etching and .miniature painting. He died in 1830, literary life in London; but, after a somewhat
at No. 2 27, High Street, in his eighty-fourth year* checkered career, returned to Edinburgh, where
“ In his latter days,” says his biographer, 0 Irefwas he<died in a lodging m Leith Walk in 1803. ^

a slender but straight ^

old man, of middle
size, and usually
dressed in a garb of
antique cut ; of simple
habits and unassum-
ing manners.”

The stairs just re-
ferred to — a great and
massive flight that
ascended from the
Cowgate to Parlia-
ment Close, imme-
diately under the
south window of the
great hall — have
long since given place
to the buildings of
the modem square ;
and no doubt they
occupied the site of
some old passage be- ,
tween the Cowgate
and the churchyard,
and for this they dr. archib.

had been substituted

about the year 1636. At their base was an ancient

DR. ARCHIBALD PITCAIRN.

In 1816 the Par-
liament Close, or
Square as it was
then becoming mo re
generally named, was
the scene of an un-
seemly literary fracas,
arising from political
hatred and circum-
stances, by which one
life was ultimately
lost, and which might
have imperilled even
that of Sir Walter
Scott A weekly
paper,, called the
^ Beacon , war estsb-

^ lished in Edinburgh,

the avowed object of
which was the sup-
port of die then Go-
vernment, bu+ which
devoted its columns
to the defamation of
d Pitcairn. Private character*,

particularly those of
the leading Whig nobles and gentlemen of

public welL The Edinburgh Weekly Journal for Scotland. This system of personal abuse fa*
1821 mentions that a man fell over 44 the stairs which rise to several actions at law, and 00 htifm
lead from the Kirkheugh to the Parliament stairs of August a reneontte took place

svnu AAV/ AAA VIAV AUMIVlIfU MIV * wrnmmmmmmmm w— - J V - + M

and the same Journal for r8*S state* that “wo A- James Stuart of Duaeara, who unoanlim
nw >n ape engaged in down the large double honour and c h a ra c te r impug^t® in an article which
t enemen t in the Cowgate, at the back of the Par- he traced to Du ncan Stevenson, the jrifltff ef^t ho
liament House, called Henderson’s Stairs, part of paper, in the Parliament Square. Stuart, with n
which, it will be remembered, fell last summer, and horsewhip^ las he d the latter, who was not^ sidlv in
which had ben condemned sixty years ago,” in re tali at ing with a stout cne.

I76 g. speedily separated," says the See# If** ftr

In 1781 land an eminent bookseller 1816, and Bfr. Stevenson, in the ctmtss tf 111

and literary antiquarian, the son of a Roxburgh day, dem a n d ed from Mr. SttaM At MlMi
femeri riWcane to Edinburgh with ;£ioo in Ws customary in such ca sea. This mm fdhsarte

csggggtts sasc

AM had betaged to ABao Rama* and eon-

AM had betaged to Ata

OLti AND NEW EDINBURGH.

■ on the following day that he In one of the houses consumed on this occasion
Mr. Stuart as 4 a coward and was a cellar or crypt in which Dr. Archibald Pit.
Lt his threat in execution ac- cum, the celebrated wit, poet, and physician, who
both parties were bound oxer was bom at Edinburgh in 1652, was wont to pass
he peace for twelve months/' many a jovial evening about 120 years before the
1 not end here. Mr. Stuart conflagration. The entrance to this gloomy place
Lord Advocate, Sir Walter was opposite the eastern window of St Giles 's, and
ervatives* had signed a bond it descended from under a piazza. A more extra-
iount, binding themselves to ordinary scene for the indulgence of mirth and of

„ rjr , jainst which such strong pro- festivity than this subterranean crypt or den—

ceedings were instituted that the print was with- facetiously named the Greping Office — certainly
drawn from the public entirely by the 22nd of could not well be conceived, nor could wit, poetry,
September. “ But the discovery of the bond,” and physic well have chosen a darker scene ; yet
continues the magazine just quoted, “was nearly it was the favourite of one whose writings were
leading to more serious consequences, for, if report distinguished for their brilliancy and elegant
be true, Mr. James Gibson, W.S., one of those who Latinity. He died in 1713, and was buried in
had been grossly calumniated in the Beacon , , had the Greyfriars’ Churchyard,
thought proper to make such a demand upon Sir In the fourth floor of the land overlooking the
Walter Scott as he could only be prevented from aforesaid cellar, there dwelt, about 1775, Lord

answering in a similar hostile
spirit by the interference of a
common friend, Lord Lauder-
dale/'

All these quarrels culminated
in Mr. Stuart of Duneam, not
long after, shooting Sir Alex-
ander Boswell, as author of a
satirical paper in the Glasgow

SEAL OF ARNAULD LAMM I US.

Auchinleck, one of the Senators
of the College of Justice, the
father of James Boswell, the
friend and biographer of Samuel
Johnson.

In the year 1767 the magis-
trates of Edinburgh had the bad
taste to paint the equestrian
statue of King Charles white, on

Sentinel, which had taken up the (From the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.) which occasion the following

rdU of the Beacon.

We have said the great fire of 1700, in the Par - 1
liament Close, was attributed by the magistrates
to the justice of Heaven; but it seems scarcely
credible, though such was the fact, that the still
more calamitous fire of 1824, in the same place, was
“attributed by the lower orders in and near Edin-
burgh also to be the judgment of Heaven, specially
commissioned to punish the city for tolerating such
a dreadful enormity as-^the Musical Festival ! ”
Early on die morning of the. 24th of June, 1824,
a fire broke out in a spirit-vault, or low drinking-
*hop, st the head of the Royal Blank Close, and it
made 'great progress before the engines arrived,
and nearly all the old edifices being panelled or
wainscoted, the supply of water proved ineffectual
to check the flames, and early in the afternoon the
eastern half of the Parliament Square was a heap of
IBwtoted ruins. To the surprise of all who wit-
n steed this calamity, and observed the hardihood
and temerity displayed by several persons to save!

'to.stesat the progress of the flames, the
terlao- Mil * sacrifice was a city officer
rnffino ' unus te dmadftrily searched
miimjkA 'hi 4be infoaary m few days after.

witty rhymes appeared in a
print of the day. The Allan Ramsay referred to
is the son of the poet, who had just painted the
portrait of George III. : —

“ Well done, my lord t With noble taste,

You’ve made Charles gay as five-and-twenty,

We may be scarce of gold and com.

But sure there’s lead apd oil in plenty ;

Yet, for a public work like this,

You might have bad some famous artist 5
Though I had made each merk a pound,

I would have had the Very smartest

M Why not bring Allan Ramsay down.

From sketching coronet and cushion ?

For he can paint a living king ,

And knows— the English Constitution.

The milk-white steed is wdl enough ;

But why thus daub the man all over.

And to the swarthy Stuart give
The cream complexion of Hanover!"

In 183*, when a drain was being dug in the
Parliament Square, close hr St' Gflerit Church,
there was found the brouseaeal of a Knight of St
John of Jerusalem. It it now prherred in {he
Museum of Antiquities, aud bean the lrgMffl.
«& AEKsuias Laimros.* .

fl* Royal ItthMfs.)

THE ROYAL EXCHANd_

CHAPTER XX.

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE— THE TRON CHURCH— THE GREAT EIRE OF NOVEMBER, tfe*

The Royal Eachaago— Laying the Foundation Stone— Description of the Exchange— The ftfyvteriou Statue— The Cbundl

tioa of Royal Burgh* : CoMtitution thereof, aad Powere-Writer*' Court-The ** Star and Garter ” Taeera— Sir Walter
of the Scene at Cleriheugh'e-Lawyen’ High Jink*— The Tron Church- History of the Old Church— Tbe Gnat F fat of
of the Conflagiataon— The Ruins Undermined— Blown up by Captain Head of the Engineers. *

uncovered, amounting to 67a, most of whom

In 1753 we discover the first symptoms of vitality
in Edinburgh after the Union, when the pitiful
sum of ,£1,500 was subscribed by the convention
of royal burghs, for the purpose of 14 beautjfriqg
the city,” and the projected Royal Excjia^ge was
fairly taken in hand.

If wealth had not increased much, the popula-
tion had, and by the middle of the eighteenth
century the citizens had begun to find the incon-
venience they laboured under by being confined
within the old Flodden wall, and that the city was
still destitute of such public buildings as were
necessary for the accommodation of those societies
which were formed, or forming, in all other capitals,
to direct the business of the nation, and provide
for the general welfare ; and so men of taste, rank,
and opulence, began to bestir themselves in Edin-
burgh at last.

Many ancient alleys and closes, whose names
are well-nigh forgotten now, were demolished on
the north side of the High Street, to procure a
site for the new Royal Exchange. Some of these
had already become ruinous, and must have been
of vast antiquity. Many beautifully-sculptured
stones belonging to houses there were built into
the curious tower, erected by Mr. Walter Ross at
the Dean, and are now in a similar tower at Porto-
bello. Others were scattered about the garden
grounds at the foot of the Castle rock, and still
show the important character of some of the
edifices demolished. Among them there was a
lintel, discovered when clearing out the bed of
the North Loch, with the initials I.S. (and the
date 1658), supposed to be those of James tenth
I-ord Somerville, who, after serving long in the
Venetian army, died at a great age in 1677.

On the 13th of September, 1753, the first stone
of the new Exchange was laid by George Drum-
mond, then Grand Master of the Scottish Masons,
whose memory as a patriotic magistrate is still re-
membered with respect in Edinburgh. A triumphal
arch, a gallery for the magistrates, and covered
standi for foe spectators, enclosed the arena.
“The pttpmttea was very grand and regular,*
sfpi the GmUmmfs Maffum for that year;
*e*ch lodg e of of which there were

ftfeeen, walked m procession by themedve* all

operative masons.” The military paid proper
honours to the company on this occasion, end es*
corted the procession in ‘.a suitable manner, .The
Grand Master and the present substitute We
preceded by the Lord Provost, magistrates, and
council, in their robes, with the city sword! mace,
&c., carried before them, accompanied by the
directors of the scheme.

' All day the foundation-stone lay open, that the
people might see it, with the Latin inscription on
the plate, which runs thus in English : —

11 Georgs Drummond,

Of the Society of Freemasons in Scotland Grand Master
Thrice Provost of the City of Edinbuigh,

Three hundred Brother Masons attending;

In presence of many persons of distinction.

The Magistrates and Citizens of Edinburgh,

And of every mnk of people an iraunefeMe multitude.
And all Applauding ;

I For convenience of the inhabitants of Edinburgh,

And the public ornament.

Laid thia stone,

William Alexander being Provost,

On the 13th September, 1753. of the Era of Masonry $753,
And of the rcigu of George IL, King of Great Britain,
the 27th year.”

In the stone were deposited two mddals, one
bearing the profile and name of the Grand Master,
the other having the masonic arms, with *hc collar
of, St Andrew, and the legend, 14 In the Lord is
all our trust. 1 '

Though the stone was thus laid in 1753, the
work was not fairly begun till the following ysafo
nor was it finished dll 1761, at the expense ef
,£31,500, including the price of the area on which
it is built ; but it never answered the purpose for
which it was intended — its paved quadrangle and
handsome Palladian arcades were never used bf
the mercantile class, who persisted in nroeth^ as
of old, at the Cross, or where it stood, ,

Save that its front and western arcades Mas
been converted into shops, it rampfce wnfollf s d
since it was thus described br Anu^ aad Rw teefc
view of it, which frees the New Towa. catdbeafee
eye at ooce, by it, rmu balk mad Ba p en dot*
too feet, all of pofifeed ukfa* aovMadupfltefe
fee aneke ef jean j— "H ie Eadwafe % Mp
aad efagut taS Sa ft * cawt I* fe* <MMML

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

past forms the north ride of the
Mends from east to west, m feet
$i feet broad. Pillars and arches,
platform, ran along the south front,
the square, and forms a piazza. In
four Corinthian pillars, whose bases

stately stair, of which die well is twenty feet square
and sixty deep. Off this open the City Chamben,
where die municipal afiairs are transacted by the
magistrates and council.

The Council Chamber contains a fine bronze
statue of Pnnce Charles Edward Stuart, in Roam

CLERlHEUGH’l TAVERN

tU*t upon the platform, support a pediment, on I
tyhich the etas of the city of Edinburgh are
tiurceds The Am floor of the main front is laid
Put hi shops. The upper floors are occupied by
Beard of Customs, who have upwards of
(hmmw oirorti f w wtfi Aw this the? ne ar to the dtv
* m* & '*£$sa « item"

tfefoftett* to the edifice is by a very

costume, and having a curious and my s te ri ous US'
tory. It is said — for nothing is kncton with cer-
tainty about it— to have been cost in France, sad
was shipped from Dunkirk to Leith, where, during
the process of unloading, it fell into toe harbour,
and remained long submerged. It*» ne» heard of
as being concealed in a cellar in the efey, mh
the SnU M* t r nrnr it ie referred to thus Ur Slot— .

" On Taesday, the tdth October, a very rintariar

PRINCE CHARLES’S STATOE.

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

(

i Budr in one of our churches. Some
chest, without any address, but of
weight,. was removed from the Old
at Leith, and lodged in the outer
the old church (a portion of St Giles's)*
box had lain for upwards of thirty years at
b, and several years in Edinburgh, withou{ a
and, what is still more extraordinary,
without any one ever having had the curiosity to
examine it On Tuesday, however, some gentle-
men connected with the town caused the mys-
terious box to be opened, and, to their surprise
and gratification, they found it contained a
beautiful statute of his majesty (?), about
the size of Ufe, cast in bronze. . . . .
Although it is at present unknown from
whence this admirable piece of workmanship
came, by whom it was made, or to whom it
belongs, this cannot remain long a secret
We trust, however, that it will remain as an
ornament in some public place in this city/’

More concerning it was never known, and
ultimately it was placed in its present posi-
tion, without its being publicly acknowledged
to be a representation of the unfortunate
prince.

In this Council chamber there meets
yearly that little Scottish Parliament, the
ancient Convention of Royal Burghs.

Their foundation in Scotland is as old,
if not older, than the days of David 1.,
who, in his charter, to the monks of Holy-
rood, describes Edinburgh as a burgh hold-
ing of the king, paying him certain revenues,
and having the privilege of free

magistrates of burghs were liable
tq the review of the Lord Great Chamberlain of
Scotland (the first of whom was Herbert, in
na8), and his Court of the Four Burghs. He
kept the accounts of the royal revenue and
expenses, and held his circuits or chamberlain-
ayras, for the better regulation of all towns. But
even kb decrees were liable to revision by the
Court of foe Four Burghs, composed of certain
bm getne s of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and
Berwick, who met annually, at Haddington, to de-
dd* «s a court of last resort, the appeals from
dm chamberlaib-ayies, and determine upon all
bttku a d h e rin g die welfare of the royal burghs,
tinea tb u anpp resrimi of the office of chamberlain
W* fop Of efeam was Charles Duke of Lennox, in
’*«& rim fflptt* f e ontmfl hjg meghtrstfi* u>

rifteMtiteab Wri id dm Exchequer, and rim re-
inrim courts of laws while

the power which the chamberlain had of regulating
matters in hb Court of the Four Burghs respecting
the common welfare was transferred to the general
Convention of Royal Burghs.

Thb Court was constituted in the reign of
James III., and appointed to be held yearly at
Inverkeithing. By a -statute of James VI., the
Convention was appointed to meet four times m
each year, wherever the members chose ; and to
avoid* confusion, only one was to appear for each
burgh, except the capital, which was to have two.
By a subsequent statute, a majority of the burghs,
or the capital with any other six, were em-
powered to call a Convention as often as
they deemed it necessary, and all the other
burghs were obliged to attend it under a
penalty.

The Convention, consisting of two deputies
from each burgh, now meets annually at Edin-
burgh in the Council Chamber, and it is
somewhat singular that the Lord Provost,
although only a member, is the perpetual
president, and the city clerks are clerks to
the Convention, during the sittings of which
the magistrates are supposed to keep open
table for the members. ,

The powers of this Convention chiefly
respect the establishment of regulations con-
cerning the trade and commerce of Scotland ;
and with this end it has renewed, from time
to time, articles of staple contract with the
town of Campvere, in Holland, of old the
seat of the conservator of Scottish privileges-
As the royal burghs pay a sixth part of the
sum imposed as a land-tax upon
) the counties in Scotland, the
Convention is empowered to con-
sider the state of trade, and the revenues of indi-
vidual burghs, and assess their respective portions.
The convention has also been in use to examine
the administrative conduct of magistrates in the
matter of burgh revenue (though thb comes more
properly under the Court of Exchequer), and to
give sanction upon particular occasions to the
Common Council of burghs to alienate a part of
the burgh estate. The Convention «$kewise con-
siders and arranges the political setts or constitn-
tioo/of the different burghs, and regulates matters
concerning elections that may be brought before it
Before the use of the Council Chamber was
assigned to the Convention it was wont to meet
in an aisle of St Gibe's church. *

Writers' Court— eo named fop rim asammmu

Royal

* gloomy little ad ds w* ♦

• "TOE TRON CHURdli

ii, into*hkh tkew «awcdj- penetmes. But it
once contained * tavern of peat conndendon in
its time, “The, Sur and Garter/' kept by a man
iamed Cleriheugh, who is referred to in “Guy Man-
nering,” for history and romance often march side
by side in Edinburgh, and Scott's picture of the
strange old tavern is a faithful one. The reader
of the novel may remember how, on a certain
Saturday night, when in search of Mr. Pleydell,
Dandie Dinpont, guiding Colonel Mannering,
turned into a dark alley, then up a dark stair, and
then into an open door. T

While Dandie “was whistling, shrilly ^pr the
waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs,
Mannering looked around him, and could hardly
conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession
and good society should choose such a scene for
social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance,
the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous.
The passage in which they stood had a window to
the close, which admitted a little light in the day-
time, and a villainous compound of smells ft all
times, but more especially towards evefiing. Cor-
responding to this window was a borrowed light
on the other side of the passage, looking into the
kitchen, which had no direct communication with
the free air, but received in the daytime, at second-
hand, such straggling and obscure light as found
its way from the lane through the window opposite.
At present, the interior of the kitchen was visible
by its own huge fires — a sort of pandemonium,
where men and women, half-dressed, were busied
in baking, boiling, roasting oysters, and preparing
devils on the gridiron ; the mistress of the place,
with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling
like that of Megaera from under a round-eared
cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders and giving
them and obeying them all af once, seemed the
presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery
region.”

Yet it was in this tavern, perhaps more than any
other, that the lawyers of the olden time held
their high jinks and many convivialities. Cleri-
heugh’s was also a favourite resort of the magistrates
and town councillors when a deep libation was
deemed an indispensable element in the adjust-
ment of all civic affairs ; thus, in the last century,
city wags used to tell of a certain treasurer of
Edinburgh, who, on being applied to for new rope
to the Tron Kirk beU, summoned the Council to
{Bonder the appeal An adjournment to Om*
heugh'i tiaaofbOufSe necemary ; hut as one dinner
rile in saffide a t for the settlement of this weighty
na tter, it was not until three had been discus s ed
tfa*4he bffl waft settled, and the bid rope spliced*

Before proceeding with the genemt trims Mjjfc
the H^h Street we wifl briefly notice thasdfjSi^
Tron Church, and of the gfkat fire m whkkfit mi
on the eve of perishing.

The old Greyfriars, with the other city ttanchea, *
being found insufficient for the increashq
lation, the Town Council purchased two |
which they intended to erect .refigtohi

One was on the Castle Hill, where die its en to ft
now stands ; the other was where the present Mi
t Church is now built This was in the year 1637*
'when the total number of householders, as ritpwn
by the Council records, could not have been much
over 5,000, as a list made four years before shows
the numbers to have been 5,071, and die annual
amount of rents payable by them only ^£192,1 18 m
Scots money.

Political disturbances retarded the program ot
both these new churches. The one on the Gttde
Hill was totally abandoned, after having been
partially destroyed by the English during the stage
in 1650 ; and the other— the proper name of which
is Christ's Church at die Tron— was not NMMfr far
public worship till 1647, nor was h completely
finished till 1663, at the cost of j£6,ooq, so much
did war with England and the-sontenrions of the
Covenanters and Cavaliers retard everything and
impoverish the nation. On front of the lower over
the great doorway a large ornamented panel >€«•
the city arms in alto-relievo, and beneath them the
inscription— jEdem hanc Christo rr icclksi*

SACRARUNT CIVES Eoi N BURGENSRS, ANNO DOM

mdcli. It is finished internally with an open roof
of timber-work, not unlike that of the Parliament

House.

Much of the material used in the construction of
the sister church on the Castie Hill was putted
down and used in the walls of the Tron, which the
former was meant closely to resemble, if we may 2
judge from the plan of Gordon of Rothiemay.

1644 the magistrates bought 1,000 stone weight of
copper in Amsterdam to cover the roof; hot end^-
were the exigencies of the time that It was sbW,
and stones and lead were substituted in Its placet ‘

In 1639 David MacfcaH, a merchant Of fMift*
burgh, gave 3,500 merits, or about <£194 flflhg
to the magistrates in trust, for pur c ha sin g kai ls
be applied to the maintenance of a chtp h tin Jtt
the Tron Church, where he was to jjrmdk rtm?
Sunday morning at six o'clock, or jflciiedMr hour
as the magistrates should appoint They maybe
truly mid, continues Araot, “to have lari gbit
talent in a napkin* They did not ap point ^
p g d ar fcr sbtydw years. As

m

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.

(paid but once in ten years, yet, if it
f managed, the accumulated sum
t exceeded >£16,000 sterling.”

I all apire had been partially built of wood

I'WjMl lead, according to a design frequently

[ On public buildings then in Scotland. It
l from the Dutch ; but the examples of it
Uy disappearing. A bell, which cost 1,490
r ‘'Olrifcs Scots, was hung in it in 1673, and continued

#gekly to summon the parishioners to prayer and

pounds yearly. It is an edifice of uninteresting
appearance and nondescript style, bring neither
Gothic nor Palladian, but a grotesque mixture of
both. It received its name from its vicinity to the
Tron, or public beam for the weighing of mer-
chandise, which stood near it

A very elegant stone spire, which was built in
1828, replaced that which perished in the great
conflajgration of four years before.

The Tron beam appears to have been used as

A GENERAL PLAN OP THE EXCHANGE
IN THE CITY OF EDINBURGH,

A LEVEL WITH THE STREET.

EXPLANATION
A TIm principal Entay
B The area rttfew Square
C The Plana.

D The Coffee woa In the wait Coffee hoaaa.

G The Gnat S-alr leading to the Cuatom

r to ditto

I As open for letting Id U*ht to the Homes
hi the Writer’! Court under the level of

K the Famge between the Square and
Wrher'a Court.

L Seven Ehopa within the Square
H Peer Shape behl d the r
N Tea Shops m a Has with the street
O Aa epea of tour feet for (hooping

* Part olklro Writer* Court
0 i

GKNSRAL PLAN OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.

%

■moon till the great fire of 1824, when it was
partly melted by heat, and fell with a mighty crash
through the biasing ruins of the steeple. Portions
of it were made into drinking quaighs and similar
memorials.

(a 1678 the tower was completed by placing
therein the old dock which had formerly been in
the With House.

. Towards the building of tins church die pious
Xgdy Tetter gave 1,000 metis. In 1703 the
tn eg jaww appointed two persons to preach alters
eett l y ta the Tron Church, to each of, whom they
grim a ttjeif ef fcWy gritma an dm Council Re-
$ bet ab«t 1788 Way contented them-
- IhmRlWIIh one iw n w r l w r . to whom ther save fiftv

(Avm am Engraving m the “Scots Magtuitu m Jbr 1754 )

a pillory for the punishment of crime. In Nkcol's
“ Diary” for 1649, it is stated that "much ialset
and cheitting was daillie deteckit at this time by
the Lords of Sessioune ; for the whilk there was
daillie nailing of lugs and binding of people to the
Trone, and boring of tongues; so that it was a
fatal year for false notaries and witnesses, as daillie
experience did witness."

On the night of Monday, the 15th of November,
1824, about ten o’clock, the ay of “Fire!” was
heard in the High Street, and It spread throughout
the city from mouth to mouth ; vast crowds came
from all quarters rushing to the spot, and colmwha
of moke and frame were Been smuing from the
eeoqnd floor of a houae at the head of the#

Tte Otfiat MnlI

THE GREAT FHtff ?

Assembly Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known engraver. The engines
came promptly enough; but, from some unknown
cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working
order, and by that time the terrible element had
raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by
eleven o’clock the upper portion of this tenement,
including six storeys, forming the eastern division
of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of
roaring frames, which, as the breeze was from the

to their elevated position, or the rok* of fat gafaH
ieg co nflagr at ion, the shouts of the nrnrBHr
wailing of women and ctiBdren, their
unheard for a time, until it was too hfe tfa
whole tenement was lost, together write emcriffat
ranges of buildings in the old Fish MarfcMind
Assembly Closes, to which it was the MMfr'df
communicating the flames.

While these tall and stately edifices were yielding
to destruction, the night grew calm and strand

the royal exchange.

south-west, turned them, as they burst from the
gaping windows, m the direction of a house to the
eastward, the strong gable of which saved it from
the destruction which seemed imminent
Two tenements to the westward were less for-
tunate, an d as, from the narrowness of the ancient
dose, it was impossible to work the engines, they
soon were involved in one frightful and appalling
Great fears were now entertained fa r the
venerable Cmtrant office ; nor was it long before
the fire seised on its upper storey, at the very time
when fame fine fellows got upon the roof of a
ft ac m cnt to the westward, and shouted to the fire-
men to give them a pipe, by which they could
play upon the adjoining root But, owing either
o

the sparks emitted by the flames shot u pw a ida m ¥
spouted from a volcano, and descended Kke fat
thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the rapta*
tion of alL A dusky, lurid ted ringed the doo fa
and the glare shone on the Castle wafa.fas
rocks of the Calton, the beetling crag* and «B thh
city spires. Scores of lofty chimn eys, eat 00 flee
by the idling sparks, added to the growing IteiflP*
of the scene; and far a conrideisble rime tfaTtgg
Church was completely developed In rife farifam
shower of tribes

About one in the month* of the sMi faefafat*

OLt> AND . NEW EDINBURGH.

(HaONwnw.

E VicfaUged impidly ; the wind,
•Mil, came in fierce and fitful
f to the danger and harrowing
no, which, from the great size of
1 touch in it that was wild and weird,
i o'clock,” says Dr. James Browne, in
Sketch of Edinburgh," 44 the fire
ded so far downwards in the building
L by the Gmrant office, that the upper part
s front fell inwards with a dreadful crash, the
ncussion driving the flames into the middle of
Die street By this time it had communicated with
the houses on the east side of the Old Fish Market
Close, which it burned down in succession ; while
that occupied by Mr. Abraham Thomson, book-
binder, which had been destroyed a few months
previously by fire and re-built, was crushed in at
one extremity by the fall of the gable. In the Old
Assembly Close it was still more destructive ; the
whole west side, terminating with the king’s old
Stationery Warehouse, and including the Old As
sembly Hall, then occupied as a warehouse by
Beffl and Bradfute, booksellers, being entirely con-
sumed. These back tenements formed one of the
most massive, and certainly not the least remark-
able, piles of building in the ancient city, and in
former times were inhabited by persons of the
greatest distinction. At this period they pre
sented a most extraordinary spectacle. A great
part of the southern land fell to the ground ; but a
lofty and insulated pile of side wall, broken in the
centre, rested in its -fell, so as to form one-half of
an immense pointed arch, and remained for several
days in this inclined position.

-By nine o’clock the steeple of the Tron Church
wag discovered to be on fire ; the pyramid became
a mare 6? flame, the lead of the roof poured over
tit T masonry in molten streams, and the bell fell
with a crash, as we have narrated, but the church
was chiefly saved by a powerful engine belonging
to the Board of Ordnance. The fire was ncny
stopped ; but the horror and dismay of the people
increased when, at' ten that night, a new one broke
forth in the devoted Parliament Square, in the attic
floor of a tenement eleven storeys in height, over-
looking the Cowgate. As this house was far to
windward of the other fire, it was quite impossible
that one couM have caused die other— a conclusion
wtddb kneed hdf upon the minds of all, together
mMt Dm staxt&ig belief that aome despamte in
; bad resolved to destroy the city; while
f f|g shout mhinit g Ad it was a special
; wmm. Heaven mpujme people w
(Brown e , pa a to; Nov. *8,

Wta* '

As the conflagration spread, St. Giles’s wad the
Parliament Square resounded with (headful echoes,
and the scene became more and more appalling,
from the enormous altitude of the buildings * all
efforts of the people were directed to saving the
Parliament House and the Law Courts, and by
five on the morning of Wednesday the scene is
said to have been unspeakably grand and terrific.

Since the English invasion under Hertford in
1544 no such blaze had been seen in the ancient
city. “ Spicular columns of flame shot up majesti-
cally into the atmosphere, which assumed a lurid,
dusky, reddish hue; dismay, daring, suspense,
fear, sat upon different countenances, intensely
expressive of their various emotions ; the bronzed
faces of the firemen shone momentarily from under
their caps as their heads were raised ht each suc-
cessive stroke of the engines ; and the very element
by which they attempted to extinguish the con-
flagration seemed itself a stream of liquid fire. The
County Hall at one time appeared like a palace of
light ; and the venerable steeple of St Giles’s reared
itself amid the bright flames like a spectre awakened
to behold the fall and ruin of the devoted city."

Among those who particularly distinguished them-
selves on this terrible occasion were the Lord Eresit
dent, Charles Hope of Granton ; the Lord Justice
Clerk, Boyle of Shewalton ; the Lord Advocate,
Sir William Rae of St. Catherine’s ; the Solicitor-
General, John Hope ; the Dean of Faculty ; and
Mr. (afterwards Loid) Cock burn, the well-known
memorialist of his own times.

The Lord Advocate would seem to have been
the most active, and worked for some time at one
of the engines playing on the central tenement at
the head of the Old Assembly Gose, thus exerting
himself to save the house in which he first saw the
light. All distinction of rank being lost now in
one common and generous anxiety, one of Sir
William’s fellow-labourers at the engine gave him a
hearty slap on the back, exclaiming, at the same
time, 44 Weel dune, my lord I *

On the morning of Wednesday, though showers
of sleet and hail fell, the fire continued to rage with
fury in Conn’s Close, to which it had been com-
municated by flying embers ; but there the ravages
of this unprecedented and calamitous conflagration
ended. The extent of the mischief done exceeded
all former example. Fronting the High Street
there were destroyed four tenements of six storeys

each, besides the underground sums; In Corel
Closer two timber-fronted M luid*’V’ great anti-
quity; in the Old Areeretty Close, four houses 4
seven storeys each ; in Bodbwick’s Close, six great
;in the Old Fish Market Close, four of

Tb* High

THE HIGH STREEl

six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cow-
gate nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of
calcined and blackened ruins, with gaping windows
fend piles of smoking rubbish.

In the Parliament Square four double tenements
of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and
the incessant crash of falling walls made the old
vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest
destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the carica-
turist, always a great attraction to idlers.

During the whole of Thursday the authorities
were occupied in the perplexing task of exaurin’V^
the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square^ Tneut
being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered,
threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything
in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice pre-
sented such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous
appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down
with cannon. On the next day the ruins were in-
spected by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain
(afterwards Sir Francis) Head of the Royal Engineers,
an officer distinguished alike in war and m literature,
who gave in a professional report on the subject,
and to him the task of demolition was assigned.

In the meantime offers of a ss frferx hmSM
tain Hope of H.M.S. Brisk , then hi IniAlIgM
were accepted, and his sfemeq, forty ift4$£5tp|
threw a line over the lofty southern gtfr te staM
Heron’s Court, but brought down <on|y a fmift
portion. Next day Captain Hope rettroadMi the
attack, with iron cables, chains, and rof^{H||Ae
some sappers daringly undermined the mrnkmmSL
These were sprung, and, as had been pre dh afci d by
Captain Head, the enormous mass fell abacs*
perpendicularly to the ground.

At the Tron Church, on the last night of |oeiy
year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with
patience and good-humour the hands of the fth
minated clock till they indicate one minute past
twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed hi
with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general
shaking of hands and congratulations ensufe and
one and all wish each other “ A happy New Year,
and mony o’ them.* 1 A busy hum pervades the older
parts of the city; bands of music and bagpipes
strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished
with egg-flip, whisky, fee, thousands hasten off m
all directions to “ first foot ” friends and relations*

CHAPTER XXI.

THE HIGH STREET.

A Place for Brawling— First Paved and Lighted -The Meal and Flesh llarkett-State of the Streete-lfunicipal RffguhfioM fftfc GlNM?
7 «W-The Lairds of Airth and Wwnyra-The Tweedies of DwmmeUwr-A Moottos. Qiumtd-Th# Slaughter* Lord Tortharwald
—A Brawl in 1705— Attacking a Sedan Chair— Habits in the Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Gills— Sumptuary Um
against Women.

posed between the city and the ancient burgh of

Before narrating the wondrous history of the many
quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged
of old, and some of which still diverge, from the
stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable
thoroughfare itself — its gradual progress, changes,
and some of the stirring scenes that have been wit-
nessed from its windows.

TiU so late as the era of building the Royal
Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase
or much alteration since King James VI. rode
forth for England in 1603. u The extended wall
erected in th$ memorable year 1513 still formed
the boundary of the city, with die exception of fee
enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates re-
mained kept under fee care of jealous warders,
and nightly dosed at an early hour ; even as when
fee dreaded inroads of fee Smthrm summoned
fee Busier Igftteh to guard their walla At fee
fro* of fefc High Street, fee lofty tower andsptre

Canongate.

On this upward-sloping tboroqghfere first lose
the rude huts of fee Caledonians, by fee «tf* ol
the wooded way that led to the Dun upon fee lock
—when Pagan rites were celebrated at suariae^m
the bare scalp of Arthur’s Seat— and des tin e d
to become in future years “the King 1 * HJgjt
Street,” as it was exclusively n a m ed in writs m d
charted, in so far aa it extended from the Nether
Bow to the edifice named Creech's Land, at dm
east end of the Luckeabootbs. “Here/ i n
writer, “was the bnttfefmond of Soothed ftpr
centuries, whereon private and party feeds. Mi
jealousies of nobles and boghei* arpd aot*fow P ef
die contests be tween fheCbpra asid the psqlfe
were settled at the sword"

As a place for bmwtingitwns ptwsesMfjU fowl
f fr— ft mf (j o loa il jg *IJ}fe ujfe

dfe hra wife An Worthy Scots
Meckqm^feribd hi tM, for mUrnh Wmdik.

oiD ANP JfBW EDlNBtJRGtk
TT

,tells ns, st the stoimtiig of Bokren
was, 4 * a Scottish gentleman under the
, coming to scaje the walla, said almxd,
f with yon, gentlemen 1 Thinke not aopr
f on the itanf of Edinburgh bravading.* One
loftown countrymen thrusting him through the
*'%ibdy with a pike, he ended there.”

In the general consternation which succeeded
the defeat of the army at Flodden a plague raged
Within the city with great violence, and carried off
great numbers. Hence the Town Council, to pre-
vent its progress,
ordered «H shops
and booths to
doaedforthe space
of Steen days, and
netiher doors nor
windows to be
opened within that
time, but on some
unavoidable occa-
sion, and nothing
to be dealt in but
necessaries for the
immediate support
of life. All vag-
rants were forbid-
den to walk in the
streets without hav-
ing each a light;
and several houses
that had been oc-
cupied by infected
persons were de-
molished.

In 153s the
HigfaL &reet was
firitipavedqrauise-
, wayed, andtoany of
• the ctd tenements
'Wgmrted. The former was done under the super-
of a Frenchman named Marlin, whose
fdhftV wgs bestowed on an alley to the south. The
Town Council ordered lights to be hung out by
night by Ihe citizens to light die streets, and Edin-
bui((h became a principal place of resort from all
1 petti of the kingdom.

TIB the reign of fames V., the meal-market, and
* dan die flesh-market, were kept in booths in the
Street, which was also encumbered by
""s ' o^wat, beadie r, end other feel, before every
| d i fe, dlffe niiiife of tbe end of dm aeven-
f toOd#doofa fokp, a flesh-

fa tf “

rim.

u These, however, 1 * says Araot, "are not to he
considered as arguing any comparative forignifi-
cancy in the city of Edinburgh. They proceeded
from the rudeness of the times. The Writers of
those days spoke of Edinburgh in terms that show
the respectable opinion they entertained of it . 4 In
this city, 1 says a writer of die sixteenth century-*
Braun Agrippinensisr— 4 there are two spacious
streets 1 of which the principal one, leading from
the Palace to the Castle, is paved with square
stones. The city itself is not built of bricks,

but of square free-
stones, ' and so
stately is its ap-
pearance, that
single houses may
be compared to
palaces. From the
abbey to the castle
there is a continued
street, which on
both sides contains
a range of excellent
houses, and the
better sort are built
of hewn sfconat'
There are,” adds
Arnot, 44 specimens
of the buildings of
the fifteenth cen-
tury still (1779) re-
maining, particu- .
larly a house on
the south side of
the High Street,
immediately above
Peeble’s Wynd,

, having a handsome
front of hewn stone,

* and niches in the
walls for the images of saints, which may justify
our author’s description. The house was built
about 1430 (temp. James I.) No private build-
ing in the city of modem date can compare
with it.”

The year 1554 saw the streets better lighted,
and some attempts made to dean them.

The continual wars with England compelled the
d ti zen s to crowd their dwdliags as neRrthe Castle
as possible; thus, instead of the city increasing in ’
l i mi t s, it rose skyward, as we have already men-
tioned ; storey was pted on atorejrStffl the
resembled closely packed towers or steeples, <

or "land,” tottering fas* twenty to thpty
" Ibis was ;

ANDREW CROSBY. (From Ike Portrait in the Parliament /fall.)
< t The original qfCemmUar PieydeUin “ Gny Mann*} inf."}